The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Founding of New England
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online
at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States,
you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located
before using this eBook.
Title: The Founding of New England
Author: James Truslow Adams
Release date: June 28, 2024 [eBook #73933]
Language: English
Original publication: Boston: The Atlantic Monthly Press, 1921
Credits: KD Weeks, hekula0KD Weeks, hekula03 and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)3 and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE FOUNDING OF NEW ENGLAND ***
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Transcriber’s Note:
This version of the text cannot represent certain typographical effects.
Italics are delimited with the ‘_’ character as _italic_. Italics may be
employed (rarely) for emphasis, but most frequently for citation of
sources and merely typographic effect.
Footnotes have been moved to follow the paragraphs in which they are
referenced.
Minor errors, attributable to the printer, have been corrected. Please
see the transcriber’s note at the end of this text for details regarding
the handling of any textual issues encountered during its preparation.
THE FOUNDING OF
NEW ENGLAND
[Illustration: New England in 1640. (Insert shows Labrador Current)]
THE FOUNDING OF
NEW ENGLAND
BY
JAMES TRUSLOW ADAMS
_Illustrated_
[Illustration]
THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY PRESS
BOSTON
COPYRIGHT, 1921
BY JAMES TRUSLOW ADAMS
First Impression, May, 1921
Second Impression, Nov, 1922
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
_To_
A. L. A.
One duty that was always incumbent on the historian has now become a
duty of deeper significance and stronger obligation. Truth, and Truth
only, is our aim. We are bound as historians to examine and record facts
without favor or affection to our own nation or to any other.
LORD BRYCE,
Presidential Address, at the
International Congress of Historical Studies, 1913
PREFACE
The following account of the founding of New England is intended to
serve as an introduction to the later history of that section, and to
the study of its relations with other portions of the Empire and with
the mother-country, as well as of the section's influence upon the
nation formed from such of the colonies as subsequently revolted. The
book thus necessarily deals mainly with origins, discussing the
discovery and first settlement of the region; the genesis of the
religious and political ideas which there took root and flourished; the
geographic and other factors which shaped its economic development; the
beginnings of that English overseas empire, of which it formed a part;
and the early formulation of thought—on both sides of the
Atlantic—regarding imperial problems.
There is no lack of detailed narratives, both of the entire period
covered by the present volume and, on an even larger scale, of certain
of its more important or dramatic episodes. New material brought to
light within the past decade or two, however, has necessitated a
revaluation of many former judgments, as well as changes in selection
and emphasis. Moreover, our general accounts do not, for the most part,
adequately treat of those economic and imperial relations which are of
fundamental importance; for the one outstanding fact concerning any
American colony in the colonial period is that it was a dependency, and
formed merely a part of a larger and more comprehensive imperial and
economic organization. Consequently, the evolution of such a colony can
be viewed correctly only when it is seen against the background of the
economic and imperial conditions and theories of the time.
While the author, accordingly, has endeavored to place the local story
in its proper imperial setting, he has endeavored also to distinguish
between its various elements, and to display the conflicting forces at
work in the colonies themselves. The old conception of New England
history, according to which that section was considered to have been
settled by persecuted religious refugees, devoted to liberty of
conscience, who, in the disputes with the mother-country, formed a
united mass of liberty-loving patriots unanimously opposed to an
unmitigated tyranny, has, happily, for many years, been passing. In his
own narrative of the facts, based upon a fresh study of the sources, the
author has tried to indicate that economic as well as religious factors
played a very considerable part in the great migration during the early
settlement period, in the course of which over sixty-five thousand
Englishmen left their homes for various parts of the New World, of which
number approximately only four thousand were to join the New England
churches. He has also endeavored to exhibit the workings of the
theocracy, and to show how, in the period treated, the domestic struggle
against the tyranny exercised by the more bigoted members of the
theocratic party was of greater importance in the history of liberty
than the more dramatic contest with the mother-country.
While the local narrative is based wholly upon original records, much
use has been made also of the rapidly increasing number of scholarly
monographs upon particular topics, the indebtedness to which will be
found more particularly set forth in the footnotes. It is true that many
points—such as land-tenure, in spite of all that has been written upon
it—yet remain to be cleared up before we can be quite sure that we
understand a number of matters connected with colonial institutions.
Nevertheless, so much work of this character has already been done,
which has only in part found its way into popular accounts, that it
seems as if the time had come for a serious attempt to recast the story
of early New England, and to combine these results of recent research
with the more modern spirit, in a new presentation of the period.
To those who first encouraged him to undertake the work,—interrupted by
the war,—and who, in one way and another, have assisted him in his
enterprise, the author takes this opportunity to offer his most sincere
and grateful thanks.
J. T. A.
BRIDGEHAMPTON, NEW YORK,
_November 9, 1920_.
CONTENTS
I. THE AMERICAN BACKGROUND 1
II. STAKING OUT CLAIMS 26
III. THE RACE FOR EMPIRE 41
IV. SOME ASPECTS OF PURITANISM 64
V. THE FIRST PERMANENT SETTLEMENT 86
VI. NEW ENGLAND AND THE GREAT MIGRATION 118
VII. AN ENGLISH OPPOSITION BECOMES A NEW ENGLAND OLIGARCHY 146
VIII. THE GROWTH OF A FRONTIER 175
IX. ATTEMPTS TO UNIFY NEW ENGLAND 206
X. CROSS-CURRENTS IN THE CONFEDERACY 231
XI. THE DEFEAT OF THE THEOCRACY 253
XII. THE THEORY OF EMPIRE 278
XIII. THE REASSERTION OF IMPERIAL CONTROL 310
XIV. THE INEVITABLE CONFLICT 338
XV. LOSS OF THE MASSACHUSETTS CHARTER 364
XVI. AN EXPERIMENT IN ADMINISTRATION 398
XVII. THE NEW ORDER 431
INDEX 457
ILLUSTRATIONS
New England in 1640 _Frontispiece_
Manuscript Map of the New England Coast, 1607-8 40
(believed to have been drawn by Champlain)
Page from Bradford's _History_, on which is the 98
Mayflower Compact
Streams of Emigration from England, 1620 to 1642 120
An Original Share in the Massachusetts Bay Company 128
Document signed by Uncas and his Squaw 204
Page from John Winthrop's Journal 232
Letter from the Earl of Clarendon to the Governor of 332
Connecticut
Warrant signed by Governor Winslow of Plymouth for the 360
Sale of Indian Captives as Slaves
Reverend John Cotton's opinion that Philip's Son 362
should be put to Death
Demand for Surrender of Sir Edmund Andros 430
Original Draft of Indented Bills of 1690 442
Testimonial to the good character of Rebecca Nourse, 454
executed as a Witch
THE FOUNDING OF
NEW ENGLAND
CHAPTER I
THE AMERICAN BACKGROUND
In the name of the country which to-day occupies the major part of the
inhabitable portion of North America is indicated the twofold nature of
its history; for the story of the United States may evidently be
approached, either from the standpoint of a federal nation, or from that
of its component political units. These units, although in themselves
separate states, are geographically divided from one another, for the
most part, by boundaries which are purely artificial. Natural frontiers
consist of the sea, deserts, mountains, rivers, and the now almost
obsolete ones of forests and swamps. A glance at the map shows that such
natural barriers are only a negligible part of the boundaries between
our various states and territories. Rivers alone form an exception, and
these, for several reasons, are the least satisfactory for the
purpose.[1] Were the federal tie dissolved, and these now united
commonwealths to become completely independent, and possibly hostile,
the artificial character of their limits would at once become obvious.
Footnote 1:
_Cf._ C. B. Fawcett, _Frontiers_ (Oxford, 1918), pp. 50 _ff._ Also,
Lord Curzon, _Frontiers_ (Oxford, 1908), pp. 13 _ff._
From this it has followed, as settlement has gradually spread over the
continent, bringing innumerable communities into existence, that these
have tended to group themselves into sections, united by common modes of
thought, ways of life, and economic needs. Histories of the individual
states are almost as arbitrarily localized as the histories of the
counties within them; but the story of any of the sections into which
the country has divided from time to time possesses an organic unity
created by the forces of life itself.
Some of these divisions have tended to remain permanent, while others
have passed with the development of the country. During the colonial
period, when the English inhabited only the comparatively narrow strip
of land between the sea and the mountain-barrier of the Appalachian
system, the colonists fell into three natural groups,—the New England,
the Middle, and the Southern,—determined by climatic, economic, and
cultural conditions. These factors, operating with others somewhat more
fortuitous, made the distinctions both lasting and marked, the extreme
northern and southern groups exhibiting their differences more clearly
than the intermediate one lying between them.
When the frontier was extended west of the mountain-barrier,—and,
indeed, on a smaller scale, even earlier,—another grouping came into
existence, that of East and West, or old settlement and frontier. This
division was also to persist, with an ever-enlarging East and an
ever-retreating West. If the economic and political ideas of these new
sections were to remain somewhat sharply contrasted, the distinctions
between the original extreme eastern groups were also continued, like
lengthening shadows across the mountain ridges, and the whole country
was to find itself aligned in two hostile groupings in the most tragic
division that it has yet had to face—that between the North and the
South.
In the New England group we have one which, in spite of minor
differences, is unusually homogeneous. Not only are the boundaries
between the six states which now form it negligible, but the section, as
a whole, is a geographical unit, within which a common life, based upon
generally similar economic, political, and religious foundations, has
constituted a distinct cultural strain in the life of the nation. The
“New England idea” and the “New England type” have been as sharply
defined as they have been persistent; and, if, in our own day, they
seem, to some extent, to be passing, their influence may be no less
living because spread broadcast throughout the whole land, and absorbed
into the common national life.
Effective natural boundaries, defining a limited area, are of
determining influence in fostering the life of primitive peoples or of
civilized colonies. Diffusion over an unlimited space, in the one case,
tends to weaken the hold on the land and the growth of the state, while,
in the other, it greatly retards the development of those elements that
make for civilized life. Aside from other factors, the possession by the
English, in the settlement period, of a limited and protected area,
naturally restricted by the sea and the mountains, resulted, speaking
broadly, in the building up of thickly settled, compact colonies as
contrasted with the boundless empire of the French, opened to them by
their control of the Mississippi and the St. Lawrence rivers. It is
noteworthy that, of the great river-highways leading to the interior of
the continent,—the St. Lawrence, the Hudson-Mohawk, and the
Mississippi,—none was at first possessed by the English, who had
everywhere, unwittingly but fortunately, selected portions of the coast
where their natural tendency to expand was temporarily held in check.
The Appalachian barrier, which thus served to protect and to concentrate
the efforts of the English, may be said to extend from the Gulf of St.
Lawrence to Alabama, coming nearest to the coast in passing across New
York. In the northern part of Maine, where the mountains descend to a
low water-shed, enormous forests, with no easy river-route facilitating
peaceful or warlike travel, formed almost as effective a barrier; while
passage southward, along the coast, was impeded during the early period
by the presence of a foreign nation, the Dutch. There were, indeed,
certain narrow entrances to this enclosed territory from the north, as
the larger streams, flowing southward from the water-shed along the
Canadian boundary, could be utilized, in connection with those flowing
northward from its other slope to the St. Lawrence. The many falls along
their courses, entailing laborious carries in the dense forest, together
with the necessary longer ones across the height of land, made these
routes more suitable, however, for the military needs of savages than
for the movement of troops in large bodies, or for the purposes of
trade.[2] The main passage for travel and transport from Canada to the
south lay wholly to the west of New England, by way of the Richelieu
River and Lake Champlain, which latter well deserved its Indian name of
“key to the country.”
Footnote 2:
The three most important of these routes were: 1, from the headwaters
of the St. John to a branch of the Chaudière; 2, from the head of the
Kennebec to the Chaudière proper (the route of Col. Arnold in 1775);
and 3, from a branch of the Connecticut to a stream entering Lake
Memphremagog, and so down the St. Francis. _Cf._ A. B. Hulbert,
_Portage Paths_; Cleveland, 1903. Many of the early maps also show the
more important portages and carrying-places.
Within the boundaries thus roughly defined and the sea, lies a land said
to contain a greater diversity of natural features than any other of
equal area in the United States. To the west and north are the Berkshire
Hills of Massachusetts, the Green Mountains of Vermont, the White
Mountains of New Hampshire, and the scattered peaks of Maine. From a
height of fifteen hundred to two thousand feet at the base of the
mountains, a gently sloping upland descends gradually to Long Island
Sound and the Atlantic. Although, at first glance, its surface seems to
present only a confused mass of low-lying hills, their tops are seen to
show a marked uniformity of level as they gradually slope downward
toward the south and east; and geological evidence makes it almost
certain that, at one time, this region was a plain, resulting from the
wearing down, by denudation, of an earlier mountain range. Subsequent
alterations in its surface, due to erosion and other factors, gave rise
to the present uplands and lowlands, which have been of determining
influence in the peopling of the section, the rugged uplands offering so
hard a subsistence that they were nowhere willingly chosen for
settlement so long as land might still be had in the lowlands.
Although, largely in the eighteenth century, economic pressure in the
happier valleys forced many farmers to move to the hills, the opening of
the West drew many of them to the prairies during the following century,
and the population, like water which had been forced above its level,
slowly drained off the uplands again, through the sluiceway of the
Mohawk Valley. To-day, dying hill-towns, abandoned farms, and the yet
unpeopled wilderness of northern Maine, tell the story of this struggle
against geographical conditions.[3]
Footnote 3:
W. M. Davis, _The Physical Geography of Southern New England_ (New
York, 1896), pp. 26 _ff._
This formation of upland and valley extends to the shore-line of Sound
and ocean, the broad coastal plain, which is so marked a feature from
New Jersey southward, being almost wholly absent in New England. This is
probably due to a subsidence of the shore, which allowed the ocean to
flow back over part of the land, and which also explains the many
hundred islands off the coast of Maine, and the drowned river valleys
along the Sound. So numerous are the islands, bays, and headlands of the
rugged coast north of the Isles of Shoals, that they expand the two
hundred and thirty miles of shore to nearly three thousand, if all are
included in the measurement. In this section, also, there are many good
harbors, particularly that of Portland, but the coast is so greatly
dissected as to make land communication along it very difficult; while
the small boats, which partially served the needs of commerce and travel
in early days, were seriously interfered with by the great rise and fall
of the tides. Both these conditions tended to isolate the colonial
settlements and hinder their development. The upland country, with its
poorer soil and more difficult conditions of life, also approaches
nearer to the sea in Maine and New Hampshire than farther south, so
that, although Portsmouth, too, has a fine harbor, those states have
always been more thinly settled than the others.
The coast of Massachusetts is less rugged, but more varied. South of the
granite headland of Cape Ann, the shores of Boston Bay are still rocky
and irregular; but both shores of the great sandy curve of the Cape Cod
peninsula, which, with Cape Ann, encloses the waters of Massachusetts
Bay, are smooth and moulded by wind and wave. The coast again becomes
rough around Buzzard's Bay, while the almost land-locked waters of Rhode
Island have drowned the old river-system of that state. Opposite
Connecticut lies Long Island, the only island of any considerable size
along the entire Atlantic coast; so that the Sound, or inland sea, thus
formed between it and the mainland, gives to Connecticut the advantage
of a quiet, protected waterway for all its ports.
The value of a coast-line, however, depends not alone upon its own
features, but upon its relations with the interior, both as to means of
communication, and as to the soil and products of the back-country.
During the colonial period, the lines of communication were naturally
along waterways. With the small tonnage of the vessels then employed,
even the sea-going ones, by utilizing rivers, could pass far inland; and
we find Henry Hudson penetrating to Albany in the same ship in which he
had crossed the ocean. The almost interminable length of the St.
Lawrence and the Mississippi lured the French ever deeper into the
wilderness in quest of the retreating fur-trade, so that their empire
became hardly more than a series of far-flung forts and trading-posts.
The rivers of New England, on the other hand, having their rise in the
Appalachian barrier, and interrupted by many falls in their short
courses, led to no vast domain beyond, and offered little temptation to
the settler to leave their fertile valleys and tide-swept mouths. This
lack of inland navigation not only tended to concentrate settlement near
the coast, or on the lower navigable reaches of such streams as the
Connecticut, but, also, in a later period, hastened the progress of
turnpikes and railroads more quickly in New England than anywhere else
in the country.[4]
Footnote 4:
E. C. Semple, _Influences of Geographic Environment_ (New York, 1911),
p. 354.
At first, however, rivers were the only means of communication with the
interior, and settlements along the coast of Massachusetts, and on
Buzzard's and Narragansett bays, tended to remain maritime in character,
extending inland but slowly; whereas those located on such streams as
the Kennebec and the Connecticut absorbed the rich fur-trade for which
they formed the main routes. This trade, it may be noted, was exhausted
earlier in New England than elsewhere, on account of the comparatively
limited drainage basins of the river-system, so that the people were
sooner forced to depend upon agriculture, fishing, commerce, and
manufactures.
Land travel continued both difficult and costly in all the colonies
throughout the whole of the earlier industrial period, and roads were so
poor, even a century after New England was settled, that not until 1722
was a team driven for the first time from Connecticut to Rhode Island.
To emphasize the effect of rivers, we may note that in New York, where
the Hudson was the highway, the average cost of carrying a bushel of
wheat one hundred miles was but two pence, compared with a shilling in
Pennsylvania, where forty wagons, one hundred and sixty horses, and
eighty men were required to transport the same amount of freight handled
by two or three men on a scow in New York. This high cost of land
carriage, which, added to the ocean freights, had the effect of
fostering home manufactures as against importations from England, also
restricted the areas of distribution, and tended to localize
industry.[5]
Footnote 5:
V. S. Clark, _History of Manufactures in the U. S., 1607-1860_
(Carnegie Institution, Washington, 1916), pp. 88 _ff._
It was not, however, merely the lack of an adequate system of river
transport that served to stimulate manufacturing in New England in
competition with the mother-country. The character of such rivers as she
possessed peculiarly adapted them for the purpose of supplying power,
for not only are falls and rapids numerous in all of them, but the
“fall-line” in New England is nearer tidewater than it is anywhere else
along the coast. In addition, the regularity of the rainfall, and the
great number of lakes, which form natural reservoirs, cause the flow of
the rivers to be more constant than in other parts of the country. From
all these causes, the little Merrimac, for example, which is otherwise
insignificant as an American river, is the most noted water-power stream
in the world.[6]
Footnote 6:
_Report on the Water-Power of the U. S_.; Census Report, 1885.
The soil of New England is of glacial origin, about three quarters of it
being of boulder-clay, stubborn in character and difficult to cultivate,
but of fair and lasting fertility, due to the steady decomposition of
the smaller pebbles. The remainder, largely in the southeast, is sandy
and of little or no use for agriculture, owing to the rapid draining
away of all moisture.[7] That on the uplands is thinner and poorer than
in the valleys, and the uplands predominate.
Footnote 7:
N. S. Shaler, _United States_, vol. 1, p. 54.
A hard living may be forced from such a soil; but the lazy or unskilled
fail to subsist, much less leave a surplus. Tests of white and colored
farmers in the north indicate that, if the efficiency of the former be
taken as 100, that of the latter is but 49,[8] from which fact the
economic impossibility of slavery would seem to be established for New
England, as that institution requires the production of a considerable
surplus over individual needs, even by inefficient labor. In Barbadoes,
on the other hand, a hundred acres planted in sugar were tended by fifty
slaves and seven white servants; a similar amount of land, if cotton
were raised, required forty-five blacks and five whites; while the
cultivation of ginger necessitated the labor of seven and a half persons
per acre.[9] The economic, social, and political results of such
utilization of the soil, as compared with the subsistence farming of New
England, are too obvious to need elaboration. As we shall see, the
Puritans were not wholly averse to owning slaves, and were often wont,
in ethical cases, to weigh both religious scruples and economic
considerations. In this case, the latter prevailed, without detriment to
the former, and the abolition sentiment of the nineteenth century was
rooted in the glacial soil of the seventeenth.
Footnote 8:
E. Huntington, _Civilization and Climate_ (Yale University Press,
1915), p. 22.
Footnote 9:
Dalby Thomas, _An historical account of the rise and growth of the W.
I. Collonies and of the great advantages they are to England in
respect to Trade_ (London, 1690), pp. 14, 21 _f._
The soil was one which did not foster large plantations, as in the
South, but small farms tilled by their owners, with little help from
slave or indented servant. There was, therefore, no economic factor at
work in New England tending to wide dispersal, as against the obvious
need of compact settlement for purposes of protection, mutual help, and
social intercourse. The early New Englander was a somewhat hesitating
believer in the injustice of slavery. He was a strong believer in a town
grouped about a church. The soil confirmed and strengthened him in both
convictions.
This compact form of settlement, in turn, however, caused the village
lands of New England to become exceedingly high-priced as compared with
the plantation lands of the southern colonies. In the seventeenth
century, New England farms very rarely contained over five hundred
acres, in contrast to the average Virginian plantation of five thousand;
but New England land was worth about fourteen times as much per acre as
that in Virginia, and a hundred-acre homestead in the north was equal in
value to a fair-sized plantation in the south.[10] All these factors,
operating with others, emphasized the characteristic nature of New
England expansion, which was almost invariably a migration, not of
individuals, but of churches and towns, or, at least, of small
neighborhood groups.
Footnote 10:
J. C. Ballagh, “The Land System in the South,” in _American Historical
Association Report_, 1897, p. 109.
When the land was first settled, it was everywhere covered by a dense
forest, except for meadows here and there, along the shore or in the
larger river-bottoms. Even to-day, of the thirty thousand square miles
of land-surface in Maine, the forest is said to extend over twenty-one
thousand, a district as large as New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and
Connecticut combined.[11] These forests, mainly of hard-wood, deciduous
trees, with an admixture of conifers in Maine, had been practically
untouched by the natives, except by burning the underbrush. In fact,
Whitney claims that more trees had been destroyed by the beavers than by
the Indians.[12] Although building stone is plentiful in New England,
this abundance of timber along the Atlantic coast determined the form of
the colonial architecture, and developed a type of wooden building
little used in England. It also provided the materials for
ship-building, the forests growing to the very edge of a shore indented
almost everywhere by suitable harbors; and, in the early period, this
industry is found scattered along the entire shore. But it tended to
concentrate at fewer points, as the lumber-supply near at hand became
exhausted, and the tonnage of vessels increased. “In reading the early
commercial history of New England,” however, as Miss Semple well says,
“one seems never to get away from the sound of the ship-builder's
hammer, and the rush of the launching vessel.”[13]
Footnote 11:
H. A. Pressey, _Water-Powers of the State of Maine_; U. S. Geological
Survey, 1902, p. 15.
Footnote 12:
J. D. Whitney, _The United States_ (Boston, 1889), p. 176.
Footnote 13:
E. C. Semple, _American History and its Geographic Conditions_
(Boston, 1903), p. 122.
The climate, though varying in intensity from northern Maine and New
Hampshire to southern Connecticut, and also from inland to the sea, is,
on the whole, a severe one. Snow falls to a considerable depth
everywhere, remaining in the mountains till late in the spring, the
lower mean temperature of the year, as compared with the coast farther
south, being due to the greater cold of winter rather than to a cooler
summer. The seasonal changes, indeed, are very marked, and the cultural
influence of “the harshness of contrasts and extremes of sensibility,”
of a “winter which was always the effort to live,” and a summer which
was “tropical license,” must formerly have been even greater than
to-day.[14] A noteworthy feature of our Atlantic coast, climatically, is
the crowding together of the isothermal lines, so that the frigid and
tropical zones are brought within twenty degrees of latitude, as
compared with forty in Europe. This bringing the products of so many
climatic regions comparatively near to one another greatly stimulated
intercolonial trade, which New England early claimed the largest share
in carrying.[15]
Footnote 14:
_The Education of Henry Adams_ (Boston, 1918), pp. 7 _ff._
Footnote 15:
Semple, _Influences of Geographic Environment_, p. 618. Both Miss
Semple and A. P. Brigham (_Geographic Influences in American History_,
New York, 1903) lay their main stress on land-forms. For climatic
influences, _vide_ W. N. Lacy, “Some Climatic Influences in American
History,” in _Monthly Weather Review_, vol. XXXVI, pp. 169 _ff._;
Huntington, _Civilization and Climate_, _ubi supra_; and _The Red
Man's Continent_ (Yale University Press, 1919).
We thus see how the mountain-barrier kept the New Englander within
bounds; how the lack of long navigable rivers prevented him from
advancing far inland, even within his narrow limits; how the bleak and
stony uplands held him along the coast and lower river valleys; how the
soil discouraged him from agriculture; and, on the other hand, how his
numerous harbors, the quantity of timber for ship-building, and his
central position for the carrying trade, all drew him out to sea.
There was another, and most important factor, however, luring him to
quit the land, for the banks and shoals, extending from Cape Cod to
Newfoundland, were the feeding grounds of enormous masses of cod,
herring, and other fish, which swarmed in the cold waters of the
Labrador current. If no precious metals rewarded search, if the beaver
retreated farther and farther into the wilderness, if the soil gave but
grudging yield, here, at least, was limitless wealth. The industry,
thanks to the combination of shoals and icy waters, became the
corner-stone of the prosperity of New England; and in the colonial
history of that section, commerce smells as strongly of fish as theology
does of brimstone. Together with lumber, fish became the staple of
exchange with old England and the rich West Indian settlements, and the
industry bred a hardy race of seamen, who manned New England's merchant
fleet, and, later, the American navy.[16]
Footnote 16:
For the influence of the sea on subsidiary industries, _vide_ M. Keir,
“Some Influences of the Sea upon the Industries of New England,”
_American Geographical Review_, vol. v, pp. 399 _ff._
In two other aspects the sea exerted marked influence upon both the
discovery and the settlement of the new lands, as well as upon their
later history. The fact that America and Europe are separated by three
thousand miles of water must be considered in relation to culture at
various periods; for geographic factors are relative, and not absolute,
in their historic connotations. Countries may be said to be habitable or
uninhabitable, distances to lengthen or shorten, heights to rise or
fall, according to the measure of man's control over nature at any given
time. As a distinguished French geographer has said: “Tout se transforme
autour de nous; tout diminue ou s'accroît. Rien n'est vraiment immobile
et invariable.”[17] Increase in speed of vessels, with increased storage
capacity for food and water, is equivalent to an actual reduction of the
distance in miles; and, measured by the standards of modern ships in
speed alone, without considering other factors, we may say that twenty
to thirty thousand miles of uncharted seas had kept America hidden from
European eyes.
Footnote 17:
Jean Brunhes, _La géographie humaine_ (Paris, 1912), p. 6.
Across this wide expanse, in the latitude of Europe, the currents of
both air and water set from America toward the Old World, and almost
precluded the possibility, under primitive conditions, of European
voyaging and discovery. North of this eastward track, however, lie not
only the stepping-stones of the Faroe Islands, Iceland, and Greenland,
but, once at Iceland, the prevailing wind carries the European mariner
to Greenland, whence the Labrador current leads him close inshore and
along the coasts of Canada and New England.[18] To the south of the
central eastward track, is the zone of the trade-winds and the great
westward flowing equatorial current; and there, again, we find island
stepping-stones. Thus nature clearly indicated the two ways by which
America might be found; and, for long, the routes followed were the
northerly one to the Newfoundland fisheries and New England, and the
southerly one to the Canaries, the West Indies, and, thence, to
Virginia. The earliest English efforts at colonization in North America
were at the two points lying nearest to England by wind and ocean
current.
Footnote 18:
In the Middle Ages there was apparently an additional volcanic island,
known as Gunnbiörn's Skerries, between Iceland and Greenland,
destroyed by eruption in 1456. R. H. Major, _Voyages of the Zeni_
(Hakluyt Society, 1873), pp. lxxiv _ff._
One other feature in the geographic control over the life of New England
may here be noted. The main imports of England were naturally those
commodities which she did not produce herself, and these were found in
the southern and West Indian colonies rather than in New England, whose
fish and cereals competed with similar products in the home market.
Destined, from her position and other geographic factors, to occupy the
leading place among the colonies in trade and commerce, New England was
thus forced to find outlets for her products in intercolonial and
foreign trade, rather than in that with England. In order to pay for the
manufactured and other articles imported from the old country, she
exported, in turn, not to that country, as, in the main, did the other
colonies, but to her sister colonies and to foreign ports. According to
the accepted economic theories of the colonizing period, this not only
made her less valuable to the mother-country, but would evidently give
her a considerable interest in breaking those laws for regulating
commerce that were the logical expression of the current imperial
theory. If we consider, therefore, the nature of the commodities she
produced, the competing character of her trade, the democratic ideas of
the groups of self-governing land-holders, such as the soil and climate
combined to develop, and the economic beliefs of the day, it becomes
evident that, when a heavy strain should be put upon the imperial
structure, the tendency to break would be likely to appear first in New
England.
In the foregoing sketch, an attempt has been made to trace, very
briefly, some of the influences of geography upon Puritan development in
New England. The early history of all peoples is largely to be found in
their struggle against their environment, and its effect upon them.
These effects are subtle and far-reaching, and, in connection with them,
it may not be wholly idle to speculate upon what might have been had
events followed a slightly different course. Had the Jamestown settlers
planted themselves upon the coast of Massachusetts, they would probably
have failed. On the other hand, had the Pilgrims and Puritans, as both
seriously thought of doing, settled in the tropics, where the nature of
the climate and the soil would have turned the scale for slavery, where
the conditions of life would have strongly combatted their notions of
town and church, and where luxury and easy living would have been
quickly attained by their inherent energy, what would then have become
of what we call the New England element in our national life? To carry
the speculation far would be futile, but it serves to bring out into
somewhat clearer relief the influences of the geographic environment
upon those colonists whose history it is our task to trace.
The distant land to which they came was not an uninhabited wilderness.
They found there, as occupants of the soil, an unknown race, in the
lower stage of barbarism, with whom they had to contend for its
possession. With a few notable exceptions, the relations of the whites
with the Indians were the same in all the colonies. The natives were
traded with, fought with, occasionally preached to, and then, as far as
possible, exterminated. “The precepts Christianity delivers,” wrote Lord
Bryce, of the relations between advanced and backward races, “might have
been expected to soften the feelings and tame the pride of the stronger
race. It must, however, be admitted that in all or nearly all the
countries ... Christianity ... has failed to impress the lessons of
human equality and brotherhood upon the whites.... Their sense of
scornful superiority resists its precepts.”[19]
Footnote 19:
Lord Bryce, _The Relations of the Advanced and Backward Races of
Mankind_ (Romanes Lecture; Oxford, 1902), p. 40. He contrasts the
failure of Christianity with the success of Islam in that regard.
This comment, which is only too true in the present day, was still more
true in the seventeenth century. Even in history, the Indian has usually
been treated as, at best, a picturesque element, to give color to the
somewhat drab homespun of the colonial story; while the Indian policy of
the several colonies, the history of the Indian trade, and the influence
of the Indian upon the settler, yet await adequate treatment.
The Indian's character and mental traits, which were frequently
misinterpreted, were those to be expected in a savage at his stage of
culture. If, on the one hand, he was not the noble being painted by
Cooper, on the other, he was not the demon often conceived. Indeed, in
scanning the list of epithets hurled at him by some of New England's
ministers of Christ, one is reminded of Professor Murray's comment on
the Greek story of Œdipus. “Unnatural affection, child-murder,
father-murder, incest, a great deal of hereditary cursing, a double
fratricide and a violation of the sanctity of dead bodies—when one
reads,” writes this scholar, “such a list of charges brought against any
tribe or people, either in ancient or in modern times, one can hardly
help concluding that somebody wanted to annex their land.”[20]
Footnote 20:
Gilbert Murray, _The Rise of the Greek Epic_ (Oxford, 1911), p. 54.
The nature of the life the Indian led inclined to render him improvident
and lazy, although capable at need of great exertion and endurance. He
was dirty in his person, and yet possessed of a childish vanity as to
his appearance. The popular idea of him as reserved, silent, and
dignified probably came from the fact that his etiquette demanded that
he thus appear on ceremonial occasions, social or religious, and it was
at such times, at first, that the whites usually saw him. In reality, in
his ordinary life, he was a sociable body, cheerful and chatty, with a
considerable sense of humor, fond of punning and joking.[21] Hysterical
in his nervous make-up, he was peculiarly liable to suggestion and
religious excitement. As he was passionate and quick to take offense,
like other savages and children, public opinion demanded that he seek
revenge; and when a crime was committed against any member of a clan,
the punishment of the guilty party became the duty of every other
member. Under the compelling influence of such a code, the individual
may often have had to appear more revengeful than he really was; and, as
a matter of fact, the old law of an eye for an eye had already become
softened by possibilities of compensation, through adoption or
otherwise, even in the case of murder. Although prisoners of war were
frequently tortured with fiendish ingenuity before being killed, in this
case, also, adoption offered a milder alternative, often exercised.
Scalping, as a sign of victory, was supposed to be performed only on the
dead, and, although this theory did not always hold good,[22] it must be
remembered that the whites, as well as the Indians, engaged in the
practice, with the difference that, while the natives did it for honor,
the settlers did it for money. New England men, and even New England
women, sold scalps to the authorities at so much a head; and, among the
Pennsylvanians, prices went as high as fifty dollars for a female scalp,
and one hundred and thirty for that of a boy under ten.[23] With the
Indian, it was merely a custom to which he had become inured; and it
should be noted that he wore his own hair accordingly, and carefully
refrained from shaving the scalp-lock, which it might be his enemy's
glory, some day, to remove.
Footnote 21:
F. W. Hodge, _Handbook of American Indians north of Mexico_ (Bureau of
American Ethnology, 1911), vol. 1, pp. 578, 88, 286; L. Farrand,
_Basis of American History_ (New York, 1904), p. 265.
Footnote 22:
G. Friederici, _Skalpieren u. ähnliche Kriegsgebräuche in Amerika_
(Braunschweig, 1906), p. 106.
Footnote 23:
G. E. Ellis, _The Red Man and the White Man in America_ (Boston,
1882), p. 123.
The influence of a formal code is seen also in his bearing of pain. In
public, he would suffer torture of the most excruciating sort with
complete stoicism, as required by the opinion of his fellows; whereas,
in private, when not thus sustained, he would be childish in his
self-abandon over the tooth-ache or other discomfort.[24] Hospitality
was a cardinal virtue, to such an extent that “in some languages there
was but one word both for generosity and bravery, and either was a sure
avenue to distinction.”[25] Fierce and bloodthirsty in war, in domestic
life he was affectionate to an extreme, especially toward children. His
code, though different from the white man's, was apparently adhered to
quite as strictly; but, when the two were brought into contact, the
vices inherent in each tended to develop, and it is natural that the
weaker came to be considered hopelessly lazy, cruel, drunken, and
untrustworthy.
Footnote 24:
Farrand, _Basis_, p. 265; Roger Williams, _A Key into the Languages of
America_ (_Narragansett Club Publications_, vol. 1), p. 138.
Footnote 25:
Hodge, _Handbook_, vol. 1, p. 572.
At the time of discovery, the natives encountered along the Atlantic
coast had advanced from savagery to the lower status of barbarism, and
were still in the Stone Age. Although agriculture was practised to a
considerable extent, the Indians, having no domestic animals, were still
dependent upon the chase for a material part of their diet, and so must
be considered as in the hunting stage, their advancement in culture
being limited by that condition.[26]
Footnote 26:
L. Carr, “The Food of certain American Indians and their Method of
preparing it”; _Proceedings American Antiquarian Society_, New Series,
vol. IV, p. 156.
Their political organization was much misunderstood by the whites, with
disastrous results. The settlers, utterly ignorant of savage life, tried
to interpret such things as they saw in terms of their own institutions;
whence came the kings, princes, and nobles, who parade the pages of our
early writers. It is needless to say that nothing in Indian society in
any way corresponded to these terms; and the failure of the whites to
apprehend that Indian institutions had almost nothing in common with
their own was the source of endless trouble and much needless bloodshed.
Among such Indians as had attained to some degree of social
organization, which included the majority on the continent and all of
those with whom the settlers came in contact, the primary unit was the
clan, or gens. Within a clan, or gens, everyone was, or was supposed to
be, descended from a common ancestor, and thus related to all the
others—in the former the line of descent being traced through the
female, and in the latter, through the male. Otherwise, the two
organizations were identical, and we shall, therefore, speak in terms of
the clan only. Clan members were absolutely forbidden to intermarry;
they had the right to elect and depose the sachem and chiefs, to bestow
names upon individuals, and to adopt strangers. They possessed common
religious observances, were buried in one place, had mutual rights of
inheritance in the property of deceased members, were under obligation
to defend one another, and participated in the council.[27] The latter
was essentially democratic, every man and woman in the clan having a
voice, the sachem and chiefs being elected and deposed at will. The
sachem was a civil officer having nothing to do with war, and the office
was hereditary within the clan, though the succeeding relative, usually
a brother or nephew, was elected. Chief was a very vague term, merely
indicating one who had been elected for some special fitness, the number
of chiefs being roughly proportioned to the size of the clan. Both
sachem and chiefs attended the larger council of the tribe.
Footnote 27:
L. H. Morgan, _Ancient Society_ (London, 1877), pp. 71 _ff._
While articles of personal property, such as clothes or weapons, were
owned by the individual, the title to all land was in the clan, and the
individual had the right of use only. Ownership in fee by the
individual, as practised by the whites, was not known at all to the
natives, nor was the native institution understood by the whites during
the first years, so that the so-called land sales by the Indians were
the cause of constant misunderstandings and ill-feeling.[28]
Footnote 28:
_Cf._ Ellis, _The Red Man_, pp. 207 _ff._
Generally, each clan possessed a totem, or animal, from which it derived
its name. These names, however, were not, as a rule, the common ones for
the animal or object, but denoted a characteristic feature or haunt, and
were less childish than they have been made to seem. Thus the Turtle
Clan did not use the common word, _ha'nowa_, but _hadiniaden_, “they
have upright necks.”[29] A curious importance was attached by the Indian
to the names of individuals, and that first given in infancy was usually
changed at puberty, and even at other times. Certain names were given
only in certain clans, and the individual had property rights in his own
name, which he could lend, sell, or even pawn.
Footnote 29:
Hodge, _Handbook_, vol. I, p. 304.
The clan was thus the Indian's little world. To its organization, and
his own position in it, he owed almost all that made life worth living
from the social standpoint—his name, to which a potent influence
attached, his ceremonial rights, his rights of inheritance, his property
rights in land, his obligation to defend and succor his fellow clansmen,
his right to be protected in return, and, finally, his political right
to elect and depose his sachem and chiefs. Notwithstanding the extremely
democratic and individualistic nature of Indian society, and the
looseness of its political organization, the influence of the clan
sentiment upon the individual must have had enormous weight.[30]
Footnote 30:
The phratry was a combination of two or more clans, forming a larger
exogamous group, and originating, perhaps, in the division of
overgrown clans. Although it frequently had the power of veto over the
election of clan sachems and chiefs, its functions were social rather
than political. In ball games, phratry played against phratry, while
at funerals and other ceremonies the organization appears clearly.
There was no chief or head.
Above the clan was the tribe, which is difficult to define, but clearly
marked, and which was the highest form of organization ordinarily
attained by the natives—confederacies, such as the Iroquois, being
exceptional. Tribal organization is more obvious to the untrained
observer than that of clans, and whenever the settlers found a body of
natives possessing an apparent degree of independence or territorial
isolation, they gave them a tribal designation, derived from the
dialect, locality, or name of the leader, though such designations are
of almost no value for scientific classification.[31] The tribe, which
was composed of several clans, may be said to have had a common
religious worship, a name, a definite territory, and the exclusive use
of a dialect, together with the right to invest and depose the sachems
and chiefs of the several clans.[32] These chiefs and sachems formed the
tribal council, which controlled the tribe's “foreign policy,” sent and
received ambassadors, made alliances, and declared war and peace,
although it was a weak organization for military purposes. The assumed
natural condition was war, not peace, and every tribe was theoretically
at war with every other, unless a specific treaty of peace had been
made. On the other hand, there was no forced military service, and
public opinion or personal inclination alone sent the warrior along the
war-path. Any person could organize an expedition at any time, and
service was voluntary, operations, as a rule, being conducted suddenly,
secretly, and on a small scale.
Footnote 31:
Clark Wissler, _The American Indian_ (New York, 1917), p. 152.
Footnote 32:
Morgan, _Ancient Society_, pp. 112 _ff._
As among all primitive peoples, the food-quest was one of the dominating
factors in the Indian's mode of life. This included hunting, both with
weapons and with traps, fishing, by net and line, and agriculture, with
primitive implements and manuring. Game was fairly abundant for a sparse
population, and the bays, rivers, and lakes swarmed with many sorts of
fish. Maize, the fundamental food-crop of all eastern North America, was
raised as far north as northern Maine; pumpkins, beans, and other native
vegetables were cultivated also, and tobacco was grown even beyond the
northern limits of maize. Not only these crops, but the whole complex of
cultivation which the Indians had developed, was of profound importance
to the settlers, who, it may be noted, also adopted in its entirety the
native method of making maple-sugar.
In many cases, the quest of these various foods gave rise to seasonal
migrations, from which was derived the false idea that the Indians were
nomadic. Although this was not true, they nearly always did have two,
and even three, places of residence—one in the summer, conveniently
located for their fields of corn; one in the winter, in some sheltered
valley; and, perhaps, one for the fall months, for the hunting.[33]
Moreover, as Williams tells us, “the abundance of fleas” in their homes
would occasionally make them “remove on a sudden” to a more exclusive
spot. Most communities had one or more fortified enclosures, consisting
of from one to a score of houses inside a stockade, which were resorted
to in time of danger, and frequently formed their winter dwellings.[34]
Footnote 33:
Williams, _Key_, p. 74.
Footnote 34:
C. C. Willoughby, “Houses and Gardens of the New England Indians,”
_American Anthropologist_, New Series, vol. VIII, p. 126.
In traveling, birch-bark or dugout canoes were used along the coasts and
water-courses, and, on the land, well-established trails extended, with
few breaks, across the length and breadth of the continent.[35] The most
noted of these in New England, and among the earliest used by the
settlers, were the Bay Path and Old Connecticut Path, the latter of
which ran from what are now Boston and Cambridge, through Marlborough,
Grafton, Oxford, and Springfield, to Albany, where it joined the great
Iroquois trail along the Mohawk Valley to Niagara.[36]
Footnote 35:
Rolle, for example, in 1697, followed one from Quebec to Illinois,
2400 miles. _Maine Historical Society Collections_, vol. V, p. 325.
Footnote 36:
The Bay Path went from Boston to Springfield along the same line,
except that it passed through South Framingham instead of Marlborough
and Worcester, joining the Connecticut Path at Oxford. See map, in L.
B. Chase, “Interpretation of Woodward's and Saffery's Map of 1642,” in
_New England Historical and Genealogical Register_ vol. IV. pp. 155
_ff._ For other early trails, see the same author's “Early Indian
Trails,” in _Worcester Society of Antiquity Collections_, vol. XIV.
pp. 105 _ff._, and A. B. Hulbert, _Indian Thoroughfares_; Cleveland,
1902.
In their travel, as in their domestic life, labor was more or less
equally divided between the sexes; and, although woman's position was
subordinate, it is a mistake to paint her as drudge, toiling for a lazy
master. In building the house, for example, the man cut and set the
poles, on which the woman arranged the covering of mats or bark. The
tillage of the soil in comparative safety was her share, while the man
undertook the more dangerous work of hunting. While she had the care of
the household, and the nurture of the children, he laboriously chipped
the stone implements used in war and the chase, built the boats, and, in
some cases, made the women's clothes as well as his own. The boys and
old men helped her about the crops; to the other males were intrusted
the duties of a warrior, and the conducting of public business and
ceremonials, including the memorizing of the tribal records, treaties,
and rituals.[37] In the production of household goods, the women made
baskets and mats; the men, dishes and pots and spoons.[38]
Footnote 37:
Hodge, _Handbook_, vol. II, p. 284.
Footnote 38:
D. Gookin, “Historical Collections of the Indians in New England,
1674”; _Massachusetts Historical Society Collections_, Series I, vol.
I, p. 151.
Such a division of labor was calculated to provide the community, under
the conditions of its savage and war-like life, with the largest
possible measure of food and protection, and did not indicate a degraded
position for woman. On the contrary, descent was usually traced through
her, and the titles of the chiefs of the clans belonged to her, as did
the family lodge and all its furnishings. She had ownership rights in
the tribal lands; possessed the children exclusively; had the right of
selecting from her sons candidates for the chieftaincy, of preventing
them from going on the war-path, and of adopting strangers into the
clan. She also had other powers, including that of life and death over
alien prisoners, and was not seldom elected a chief or sachem herself.
Among the Iroquois, the penalty for killing a woman was twice that
exacted for a man; and it is noteworthy that no attempt against the
chastity of a white woman prisoner has been charged against the savage—a
record distinctly better than that of the white settlers. Although
polygamy was not forbidden, it was rare except in the case of chiefs,
priests, and shamans (or medicine-men), and monogamic unions were the
rule. The tie, however, was loose, and could readily be dissolved by
either party, the children, in any case, remaining with the mother.
Constancy was expected, and its breach, particularly in the case of the
woman, was severely punished. Chastity was not expected before marriage,
but, as Wissler points out, it was essential in certain religious
ceremonies, and so may have been an ideal.[39]
Footnote 39:
Wissler, _The American Indian_, p. 176.
In their relations with their children, we find some of the highest
traits in the character of the natives. Both parents were, as a rule,
excessively fond of their offspring, and boys and girls were carefully
instructed. In general, moral suasion alone was used; force but rarely.
The girls, from an early age, were taught sewing, weaving, cooking, and
the other household arts; the boys were initiated into the methods of
hunting, fishing, war, and government. Etiquette was carefully observed
by all, in such matters as sitting, standing, precedence in walking,
interrupting a speaker, respect to elders, passing between a person and
the fire, and the other niceties of life according to native standards.
The New England Indians had made but slight progress in the arts. The
character of the native music is even yet not well understood, and much
preliminary work remains to be done before any generalizations can be
made.[40] We know, however, that in the same song the instrumental and
vocal rhythms were different, and that there was a characteristic one
for every ceremony. Music, indeed, was an important element in life, all
ceremonies, public and private, being accompanied by songs, which were
the property of clans, societies, or individuals, and were bought and
sold. In design, both in pottery and weaving, the patterns used were
geometrical only, and simple; but the later New England native pottery
showed the influence of the superior art of the Iroquois, in form as
well as decoration.[41]
Footnote 40:
_Ibid._, p. 146.
Footnote 41:
C. C. Willoughby, “Pottery of the New England Indians,” in _Putnam
Anniversary Volume of Anthropological Essays_ (New York, 1909), pp. 83
_ff._
In their economic life, the most interesting feature was the use of
wampum, or shell-beads, as a primitive medium of exchange. These little
black or white cylinders, of which the former were worth twice as much
as the latter, were made with great care from certain shells found along
the coast. Besides their use as currency, they were prized by the
Indians as ornament, and were strung into belts, to perform their
well-known symbolic and historical functions.[42]
Footnote 42:
W. B. Weeden, _Indian Money as a Factor in New England Civilization_,
Johns Hopkins University Studies, 1884; A. C. Parker, _The
Constitution of the Five Nations_, N. Y. State Museum Bulletin, 1916.
One of the most popular misconceptions of the Indian is that of his
belief in a “Great Spirit.” Nowhere in American aboriginal life do we
find anything approaching such a conception. The Indian was in the
animistic stage of religious belief. The _manitou_ of the Algonquins,
like the _orenda_ of the Iroquois, was merely the magic power which
might exist in objects, forces, animals, and even men, superior to man's
natural qualities; and the Indian's religious beliefs centred about his
relations to some embodied form of this power. He believed in good
spirits and bad, which could be controlled or invoked by prayer,
offerings, charms, or incantations, and had developed a large body of
myths to explain the universe and his relation to it. No moral concept
attached to any of his deities, nor had he developed any idea of future
rewards and punishments, although there was a belief in some vague form
of life after bodily death. The rites of their primitive religion were
in the hands of priests, whose power and influence increase as we
proceed southward toward the highly developed ritualism of the Incas and
their neighboring civilizations. The priest, acting for the tribe, must
not be confused with the “medicine-man,” who depended solely upon his
personal ability to establish relations with the magic powers, which he
won by extraordinary experiences derived from fasting, prayer, and
nervous excitement.
The exact classification of the Indians by cultural, archæological,
linguistic, and other tests, is a matter of considerable difficulty, but
the linguistic, on the whole, is the best. Judged by all of them,
however, the aborigines of New England possessed a high degree of
unity.[43] At the time of settlement, the entire country along the
coast, from Maryland to Hudson Strait, was occupied by natives of the
widely distributed Algonquin stock, except for a small number of
Beothuks in Newfoundland, and the Esquimaux along the Labrador
shore.[44] The Algonquins also extended westward to the Mississippi, and
two-thirds of the way across Canada. Imbedded in this otherwise
homogeneous mass, the great body of the Iroquois dwelt on both sides of
the St. Lawrence, surrounded Lake Erie, and covered all central
Pennsylvania and the state of New York, except the lower Hudson.
Although not included in the confines of New England, the influence of
this highly organized and warlike confederacy was felt far beyond their
bounds in every direction.[45] It is impossible to state the numbers
which composed the New England tribes at the coming of the whites.
Perhaps the original settlers faced in all, throughout New England, five
thousand warriors, although this may be too high a figure, and all
estimates can be only guesses.[46]
Footnote 43:
See maps, in Wissler, _The American Indian_, pp. 205, 246, 282.
Footnote 44:
In recent years, evidences of a pre-historic culture in the Penobscot
valley, wholly different from that of the Algonquin or Beothuks, have
been found. _Vide_ W. K. Moorehead, “Prehistoric Cultures in the State
of Maine,” _Proceedings of the 19th International Congress of
Americanists_ (Washington, 1917), pp. 48 _ff._ Also his “Red-Paint
People,” in _American Anthropologist_, New Series, vol. XV.
Footnote 45:
L. H. Morgan, THE LEAGUE OF THE IROQUOIS; New York, 1901, _passim_.
Though considered a different stock from the Algonquin, they seem to
have been identical physically. A. Hrdlĭcka, _Physical Anthropology of
the Lenape_; Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin 62, 1916, p. 127.
Footnote 46:
Gookin, _Historical Collection_, pp. 145 _ff._ Another writer, in
1629, says: “The greatest Saggamores about us cannot make above three
hundred men, and other lesser Saggamores have not above fifteen
subjects, and others neere about us but two.” [Higginson] “New
England's Plantation, 1630,” in _Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll._, Series I,
vol. I, p. 122.
Such, in outline, was the Indian when he met the astonished and anxious
gaze of the first settlers. Enough has been said to show that in the
contact of the races an irrepressible conflict was bound to develop.
Even had the savage never received any but kind and just treatment from
his white neighbor, it is improbable that he could have readjusted his
entire life so as to compete with, or to accept, civilization. That
test, however, was never made. To say that his lands were bought, and
that, therefore, he was justly treated, is a mockery. To have expected
sympathy, understanding, and justice in the situation as it developed in
the seventeenth century is asking too much, both of human nature and of
the period. Indeed, it is questionable whether, in the competition
between races of higher and lower civilizations, when the former intrude
upon the lands of the latter, justice, in its strictest sense, is ever
possible. One cannot believe that the world would have been either
better or happier had the land which to-day supports a hundred million
self-governing people been left to the half-million barbarians who
barely gained a subsistence from it four centuries ago. Man, in the
individual treatment of his fellow, is, indeed, bound by the laws of
justice and of right; but in the larger processes of history we are
confronted by problems that the ethics of the individual fail to solve.
The Indian in the American forest, and the Polynesian in his sunny isle,
share, in the moral enigma of their passing, the mystery of the vanished
races of man and brute, which have gone down in the struggle for
existence in geological or historic ages, in what, one would fain
believe, is a universe governed by moral law.
CHAPTER II
STAKING OUT CLAIMS
As we saw in the first chapter, nature had clearly defined the paths by
which America might be found. The time when the discovery would be made
was almost as definitely determined by events in the Old World. For
countless centuries, Europe, by many routes and through many
intermediaries, had traded with the vaguely localized countries of the
Orient. Throughout the Middle Ages, not only had she been dependent on
the East for most of her luxuries, but many of these, from long usage,
had become necessities.[47] About the beginning of the fourteenth
century, this commerce, “the oldest, the most extensive, and the most
lucrative trade known to Europe,” began to be interfered with by the
internal changes in the East, mainly due to conquests by the Ottoman
Turks. Beginning about 1300, marked by the fall of Constantinople in
1453, and continuing until all the seaports of the eastern
Mediterranean, including those of Egypt, were in their possession by
1522, the process was a gradual one. At first uneasy, then alarmed,
finally facing commercial ruin by the almost complete strangulation of
her Oriental trade, Europe struggled frantically against geographical
conditions, in her efforts to find a new and unimpeded route to the
East.
Footnote 47:
_Cf._ E. P. Cheyney, _European Background of American History_ (New
York, 1904), pp. 3-41.
During the latter part of the same period, geographical science had been
making many strides; while the theory of the earth's sphericity had been
held, by some at least, since the days of Plato. After nearly two
thousand years, motives developed which led men to turn that idea into
action by use of the new discoveries, and in one generation Columbus
sailed west to America, and Da Gama east to India, and Magellan
circumnavigated the globe. The thought advanced by philosophy, denied by
common sense, and fought by the Church, finally wrought the greatest
change yet known in the world's history through the commonplace
necessities of trade.
Voyaging toward the northwest, in the hope of finding the treasures of
the East, had possibly been undertaken annually from 1491, by certain
citizens of Bristol, England, when the Italian, John Cabot, domiciled in
their city, applied to King Henry VII for letters patent “for the
discovery of new and unknown lands.” The Cabots themselves left no
account of their voyages, and the story must be made up from a few
contemporary documents, some hearsay evidence, and a large amount of
inference. Apparently, John Cabot sailed, some time in 1497, under the
patent granted to himself and his sons, and by the end of August was
back in England, after a voyage of several months. The location of the
landfall, made June 24, is wholly uncertain.[48] A second voyage was
made the following year, and a considerable part of the northeast coast
appears to have been explored, although it is impossible to place the
limits of the discovery. Whether he was accompanied on either or both of
the voyages by his son Sebastian is uncertain, but it is probable that
he was.[49] As for the rest, one is tempted to echo Dawson's remark,
that “as for John Cabot, Sebastian says he died, which is one of the few
undisputed facts in the discussion.”[50] To us, the importance of the
voyage lies in the fact that upon it England based her claims, in later
times, to a portion of the New World, though she made no effort to
colonize for another eighty years, and the immediate effect of the
discovery was not great—The times were not yet ripe. Exploration and
land-grabbing were games for kings, and not for private endeavor, as the
merchants of Bristol had doubtless found; and Henry, as the Milanese
ambassador observed, was “not lavish.”
Footnote 48:
Prowse favors Newfoundland; d'Avezac, Deane, Réclus, Winsor, Brevoort,
Eggleston, Winship, Biggar, and Dawson believe in Cape Breton; Biddle,
Humboldt, Kohl, Stevens, Kretschmer, and Harrisse point to Labrador.
The question is not important, and the alignment is given merely to
show the uncertainties of this and other early voyages. The original
sources are most accessible to the general reader in C. R. Beazley,
_John and Sebastian Cabot_; London, 1898.
Footnote 49:
In regard to the 1497 voyage, opinion ranges from R. Biddle, _Memoir
of Sebastian Cabot_ (Philadelphia, 1831), p. 50, who doubts if the
father went, to H. Harrisse, _John Cabot_ (London, 1896), p. 48, who
doubts if the son did!
Footnote 50:
S. E. Dawson, “Voyages of the Cabots.” _Transactions of the Royal
Society of Canada_, Series II, 1894, p. 53.
Owing to the great demand for fish in a Catholic Europe, however, the
shores of Newfoundland soon became the accustomed resort of English,
French, and Portuguese.[51] The coast between Canada and Florida,
nevertheless, remained practically unexplored, and the maps of the
period either break the continent into islands, or connect the two known
portions by a fanciful delineation, considered by some students to
represent the eastern coast of Asia.[52] Where nothing is certain, all
is possible, and it was thought that the passage to the East, so vainly
sought elsewhere, might yet be found in this unknown part of the world.
In 1524, Verrazano, under the flag of France, and, a year later, Gomez,
under that of Spain, undertook again the task of finding a westward
route to Zipangu and Cathay. The Frenchman, apparently, coasted
northward from Carolina to Newfoundland, and the Spaniard seems to have
covered part of the same range, though the limits are not known, nor
even the direction in which he sailed.[53]
Footnote 51:
_Cf._ H. Harrisse, _The Discovery of North America_ (London, 1892),
pp. 180 _ff._; and C. de la Roncière, _Histoire de la Marine
Française_ (Paris, 1906), vol. II, p. 399.
Footnote 52:
_Cf._ H. Stevens, _Historical and Geographical Notes_; New Haven,
1869.
Footnote 53:
For the Verrazano voyage, _vide_ B. Smith, _An Enquiry into the
Authenticity_, etc.; New York, 1864; J. C. Brevoort, _Verrazano the
Navigator_; New York, 1874; H. C. Murphy, _The Voyage of Verrazano_;
New York, 1875; B. F. deCosta, _Verrazano the Explorer_; New York,
1881. The Gomez voyage is important but very obscure. The statement by
Fiske (_The Discovery of America_, vol. II, p. 491) is far too
positive. Harrisse (_Discovery_, pp. 229-43) gives new documents.
The three main contestants for empire in North America had now appeared.
Spain, France, and England had all planted their flags upon our shores,
although their future struggles were as yet hardly foreshadowed. The
fishing grounds, on the high seas and far from the routes of Spain's
gold-laden galleons, were open to all, though the English seem early to
have established some sort of authority over the rough fishermen of the
nations gathered there.[54] The continent itself, however, was merely an
unwelcome barrier, save the Spanish possessions in the south, with
which, as yet, no other nation had thought of meddling. Nevertheless, a
new era had opened, and commerce, which, from the dawn of history, had
clung to the Mediterranean, now abandoned that enclosed sea for the open
highways of the world's oceans. The Oriental trade began to flow through
new channels, and Spain, by the conquest of Mexico, in 1522, tapped
unlimited sources of the precious metals. The enormous import business
from the East, formerly concentrated in the hands of the great
mercantile cities of Italy, passed to the Iberian powers,[55] while
men's horizons were widened by the new discoveries, and old established
methods, routes, and connections had received severe shocks. The example
of Spain and Portugal was making other nations dream of gaining fabulous
wealth by finding their way to the riches of the Orient, or gold in the
wilds of America.
Footnote 54:
“The Englishmen, who commonly are lords of the harbors where they
fish, and do use all strangers helpe in fishing if need require,
accordinge to an old custome of the countrey.” Letter of Anthony
Parkhurst, 1578, in Hakluyt, _Voyages_ (Glasgow, 1904), vol. VIII, p.
10. H. P. Biggar states that the English were so heavily interested in
the American fisheries by 1522, that the Vice-Admiral sent several
men-of-war to the mouth of the Channel to protect the returning
vessels. _Early Trading Companies of New France_ (Toronto, 1901), p.
20.
Footnote 55:
_Cf._ W. Heyd, _Geschichte des Levantehandels in Mittelälter_
(Stuttgart, 1879), vol. II, pp. 514-40.
For the next four centuries, the civilization of Europe, which
throughout the mediæval period had been hemmed within a narrow region by
strong barbaric powers, was able to expand against almost negligible
resistance, until, after having encircled the world, it is again faced
in our own day by a “closed political system.”[56] At the very moment
when new forces were being let loose by the social ferment following the
Renaissance and the Reformation, the new lands offered vents through
which those forces might in part escape, without causing such explosions
as wholly to wreck the social system. Their presence, or, to phrase it
differently, the existence of a practically unlimited frontier, during
the whole of our colonial period, was one of the great formative
elements in our institutions, and in the relations between the colonies
and England.
Footnote 56:
H. J. Mackinder, “The Geographical Pivot of History,” in _The
Geographical Journal_, April, 1904, pp. 421-44.
We are so accustomed to think of that country as the great trading
nation and mistress of the seas, that it is hard to conceive of a time
when she had not even faintly dreamed that her destiny was to be upon
the water, when her trade was still mainly in the hands of foreigners,
and she herself was merely a producer of raw materials for the
manufacturers on the continent. Such, however, was the situation at the
opening of the sixteenth century. Men, indeed, began to talk of the new
discoveries, which were even introduced into the rude theatre of the
time; but, in the main, they stuck to their last, and fished and grew
wool like their fathers. As yet, there was not the vaguest thought of a
colonial empire—only dreams of gold and spices, and the silent fishermen
catching cod.
The accession of Elizabeth opened the door to imperial ambition. Spain
was, indeed, at the height of her power, whereas England's day was yet
to come. Elizabeth's resources needed careful husbanding, and no open
breach between the two countries could be allowed; but political
interests were still European in the minds of statesmen, and peace,
though many times in jeopardy, was not to be broken lightly for what
English seamen might do “beyond the line.” America was a means to
European ends for Spain, and, until the depredations of the English
became so great as to threaten those ends, murder, robbery, and the
looting of cities passed with no action beyond protests, which Elizabeth
met and parried.
We must pass by the doings of Hawkins, Drake, and the other sea-dogs,
the whole pack of whom were soon in full cry after the hated Spaniards
in their slow-moving galleons, laden with the treasure upon which their
European power was nourished. This latter fact was now recognized, and
wild and, perhaps, unlawful as were these English seamen, we must
remember that, unlike common pirates, their depredations were not alone
for private ends, but were blows struck for their religion, their
country, and their queen. Had it not been for them, the Armada might
indeed have been invincible, and the civilization of North America have
been Latin instead of Anglo-Saxon.[57]
Footnote 57:
If “these thinges be sett downe and executed duelye and with speed and
effecte, no doubte but the Spanishe empire falles to the grounde, and
the Spanishe kinge shall be lefte bare as Aesops proude crowe ... if
you touche him in the Indies, you touche the apple of his eye; for
take away his treasure, which is neruus belli, and which he hath
almoste oute of his West Indies, his olde bandes of souldiers will
soone be dissolved, his purposes defeated, his power and strengthe
diminished, his pride abated, and his tyranie utterly suppressed.” R.
Hakluyt, “A Discourse concerning Western Planting”; _Maine Historical
Society Collections_, vol. II, p. 59.
One of the outstanding characteristics of the later Tudor period was the
remarkable development of individual initiative. Men were no longer
content “ever like sheepe to haunte one trade,” but in every field of
human endeavor were striking across new paths. It was, moreover, an age
of glorious amateurs. As in the best days of Greece, the bars that bound
the individual within narrow limits of professionalism were broken
asunder. It was as if to the nation's mature powers had suddenly been
added the gift of youth. It was a cry of youth which Thorne uttered when
he swept away all objections to the dangers of the Northwest Passage
with his “there is no land unhabitable nor sea innavigable.” Elizabeth's
well-known methods, which perhaps temperament, necessity, and policy all
had their share in fashioning, were admirably adapted to bring out, and
to use to the utmost, these qualities in her subjects. Personal loyalty
and individual initiative were largely fostered in place of taxation and
governmental enterprise, and the patriotism of a united nation rose to
new levels. “He is not worthy to live at all,” wrote Sir Humphrey
Gilbert, in 1576, “that for feare, or danger of death, shunneth his
countries service, and his owne honour.”[58]
Footnote 58:
Hakluyt, _Voyages_, vol. VII, p. 190.
This growing national feeling was strengthened by religious motives. The
persecutions under Mary, and the tortures of the Inquisition, to which
English sailors were so often subjected in the ports of Spain, both
played their part in the drama now being enacted. Five thousand English
volunteered for service against the Spaniard in the Netherlands, and the
Queen's hand was being forced by the national feeling that she herself
had aroused. The conquest of Portugal by Spain, in 1580, nominally
transferred to the latter all the colonial possessions of the entire
world she did not already possess, leaving no room open for other
nations, according to Spanish pretensions. The English government at
last spoke, however, and in the same year, in answer to Spain's demand
for the return of Drake's plunder, announced that Spain “by the law of
nations could not hinder other princes from freely navigating those seas
and transporting colonies to those parts where the Spaniards do not
inhabit; that prescription without possession availed nothing.”[59] The
rights of other nations were definitely settled by the defeat of the
Armada eight years later.
Footnote 59:
Cited by Alexander Brown, _Genesis of the United States_ (Boston,
1890), pp. 9 _f._ The original source is not indicated.
Business was beginning to improve somewhat after its long decline. The
Muscovy Company had been chartered in 1555, and trade was seeking those
new outlets which Sebastian Cabot had been recalled from Spain to find;
but England felt the effects of the vast injection of American bullion
into the currency system of Europe later than the continental countries.
After the recoinage of the debased money in 1559, however, the advance
in prices, which had already begun, was very rapid, with effects upon
the country gentry and other classes, which were to have a marked
influence upon American colonization.
In the meantime, while Drake was hastening home from the Pacific in the
Pelican, loaded to the gunwales with the spoils of Spanish
treasure-ships, another voyage, the first, except those of fishermen,
since the ill-fated escapade of a London lawyer in 1536, was being made
to the shores of Newfoundland. The motive was the old continuing one of
a passage to the Orient by the northwest, although little is known of
its details. The Queen, however, granted to its leader, Sir Humphrey
Gilbert, a patent to colonize and rule such lands as he might choose
from his new discoveries. This patent, which was issued in 1578, and
marked a new epoch in England's American policy, followed in many
respects the charters of the trading companies granted by the Crown both
previously and subsequently.[60] It had, however, a wholly novel feature
in the clause which permitted Gilbert to transport a colony to his new
possessions. It is probable that this first attempt to plant an English
community beyond the seas was largely based upon the experience being
gained at this very time in the efforts to colonize Ireland. Sir
Humphrey himself, with other west-country gentlemen, had undertaken to
plant colonies on the Crown lands in Ulster, eleven years before, and
various plans and essays had been made, though unsuccessfully.[61] These
colonizing schemes in Ireland were being considered and carried out
during the whole period of the early efforts to plant colonies in
America, and many individuals and city companies were interested in
Irish and American lands at the same time. Both were almost equally wild
and uncivilized, and both were rich and undeveloped.[62] The Irish
Plantation Society, formed in 1613, was a serious rival to the Virginia
Company, and diverted both funds and colonists at a critical time for
the American scheme.[63]
Footnote 60:
It is given in Hakluyt, _Voyages_, vol. VIII, pp. 17-23.
Footnote 61:
W. Cunningham, _The Growth of English Industry and Commerce_
(Cambridge, 1892), vol. II, pp. 31-33.
Footnote 62:
M. J. Bonn, _Die Englische Kolonisation in Irland_ (Stuttgart, 1906),
vol. I, pp. 265-373.
Footnote 63:
Brown, _Genesis_, p. 860.
The beginnings of the continental American colonies, indeed, are too apt
to be considered as isolated events. Their unique importance from the
standpoint of American history has tended to obscure their real nature.
From that standpoint, they are naturally viewed as the founding of a
great nation; but if they are considered solely in that relation, not
only the planting of the colonies themselves, but the subsequent history
of their relations with the mother-country, and the whole course of
England's old colonial policy, are bound to be misunderstood. The
American colonies, in their inception, were largely business ventures of
groups of individuals or joint-stock companies, and, as such, were but
episodes in the expansion of English commerce.
The patents and charters issued to companies for trade and discovery,
prior to that of Gilbert, contained the germs of most of the provisions
which subsequently found their way into the charters of American
colonies, and the ideas of colonial administration. Monopoly of trade
for a definite time was naturally granted, as recompense for the great
expense and risk involved in opening new channels. The trades, moreover,
were also justly regulated for the benefit of England rather than of the
few individuals who were shareholders in the enterprises. Hence, we find
stipulations such as that in the Cabot charter of 1496, requiring all
business done under it to pass through the port of Bristol only; or that
in the charter of 1566, to the Fellowship of English Merchants,
requiring that all goods must be carried solely in English ships, manned
for the most part with English sailors.[64] These and other restrictions
were the germs of a domestic economic policy which, although reasonable
enough in its inception, was to be pregnant with such fatal results when
pursued consistently, and without taking into consideration the altered
conditions brought about by the unexpectedly tremendous growth and
political needs of those particular colonies planted by certain trading
companies or individuals in America.
Footnote 64:
Hakluyt, _Voyages_, vols. VII, p. 144, and III, p. 89.
Under the system of international intercourse prevailing in the
fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, it was found necessary to provide
some sort of government and authority for the groups of English
merchants, and their clerks, residing in foreign countries. The problem
was met, in 1404, by Henry IV, who granted a charter to those resident
in the Teutonic countries of northern Europe, permitting them to meet
together to elect their own governors, and to make their own laws, the
king ratifying and requiring obedience to such legislation in
advance.[65] In 1462, Edward IV, in a charter to those resident in the
Netherlands, appointed the governor, but allowed the merchants to elect
twelve “Justiciers,” who were to sit with him as a court. The merchants
were also to make their own laws, which, however, had to be approved by
the royal governor. When it was no longer a question of trading in a
civilized country, but of discovering new ones, unoccupied, or occupied
only by heathen, the discoverer was naturally allowed to take possession
in the name of the king, and was enfeoffed with the new land, the
condition of tenure usually being a fifth of the precious metals found.
Footnote 65:
_Ibid._, vol. II, p. 108; _cf._ also the earlier charter of Richard II
(1391), cited by C. T. Carr, _Select Charters of Trading Companies_
(Selden Society, London, 1913), pp. xi _ff._
In these commercial charters, we thus find the germs of the
commonwealth, royal, and proprietary colonies of the seventeenth
century. There was no break at the beginning of American history. Nor
was there any conscious intention upon England's part of founding an
empire. The English colonies were by-products of British commercial
activity, and English “colonial policy” was but a mere phase of her
commercial policy. It is only by that light that the development of
events can be rightly understood.
The lands conveyed to Gilbert were suitable for Englishmen to dwell in,
and to be made valuable would require to be populated. This, however,
raised a new question. Heretofore, men had lived as merchants in foreign
but civilized countries, or fished or traded in others. If, now, they
were to settle permanently in this barbarous land, would they cease to
be Englishmen without becoming anything else? Elizabeth cut the knot by
decreeing that such new countries should owe personal allegiance to
herself, and, in that way, be united to her “Realmes of England and
Ireland”; and, further, that any one born in the new lands, or
emigrating thither from the old, should have all the privileges of a
free-born native of the Realm.[66] These questions, now first arising,
as to whether the settlers in new lands were within or without the
Realm, and, if without, then whether they could be held as subject to
the government that functioned for the Realm, were to become more and
more insistent of answer in the days to come. But when Elizabeth granted
her patent to Gilbert, little could any one have realized the size of
England's future empire in America, or that that empire would be lost by
civil war, in part because the answers to those questions could not be
found. The main factor that gave rise to this distinction between the
Realm and the Dominions, and that was to be primarily responsible for
the failure satisfactorily to adjust the relations between them, was the
physical distance, in terms of the sixteenth, seventeenth, and
eighteenth centuries, by which they were separated.
Footnote 66:
Hakluyt, _Voyages_, vol. VIII, p. 20. Professor H. L. Osgood states
that “by the realm was usually meant England, Wales, and Berwick on
Tweed.” _The American Colonies in the 17th Century_ (New York, 1907),
vol. III, p. 6. In Gilbert's charter, the words “realmes of England
and Ireland” are used. Scotland, of course, was a separate realm.
Gilbert's efforts to colonize, however, like those of his half-brother,
Raleigh, resulted only in failure. The time was ill chosen, as there was
still work enough for enterprising spirits, and the employment of
capital, in other directions. Under the stimulus of the defeat of the
Armada, English seamen scoured the sea in search of Spanish prey, and it
has been estimated that eight hundred Spanish vessels were lost in four
years.[67] If in the light of such opportunities, colonizing seemed but
a poor investment, voyaging and discovery, nevertheless, proceeded at a
rapid rate. But New England, in spite of its being so near the field of
English activities in the fisheries, was neglected, although its coast
may occasionally have been visited by enterprising souls like Richard
Strong, who sailed to “Arambec,” in 1593, in search of “sea-Oxen.”[68]
Footnote 67:
Brown, _Genesis_, p. 20.
Footnote 68:
Hakluyt, _Voyages_, vol. VIII, p. 157.
The land itself seems not to have been thought worth investigating until
Bartholomew Gosnold made a clandestine voyage thither, to his own
profit, and to Raleigh's annoyance, in 1602. Formerly, this little
trading trip of Gosnold's, undertaken for the Earl of Southampton, Lord
Cobham, and others, was thought to have been a serious attempt at
colonization with the consent of Raleigh, the sphere of operations lying
within the limits of his patent. The voyage thus secured more attention
from historians than it deserved. Apparently some sort of permanent
trading-post was, indeed, intended, as of the thirty-two persons who
went to America, twenty were expected to “remayne there for
population.”[69] None did, however; and after having visited
Massachusetts Bay, christened Cape Cod, and spent some time on the
island of Cuttyhunk, where they built a fort, and loaded their ship with
sassafras, the whole company returned to England, after an absence of
four months. Raleigh, ignorant of the episode, but finding the
“sassephrase” market taking a sudden drop, investigated, and the fact of
the voyage came to light. Although he confiscated the cargo, he became
reconciled with both Gosnold and his own nephew, Bartholomew Gilbert,
who also had had a hand in the business, and both were subsequently
employed in Virginia.[70]
Footnote 69:
S. Purchas, _Hakluytus Posthumus, or Purchas His Pilgrimes_ (ed.
Glasgow, 1905), vol. XVIII, p. 302.
Footnote 70:
The clandestine nature of the voyage is proved by B. F. deCosta,
“Gosnold and Pring,” in _N. E. Historical and Genealogical Register_,
1878, vol. XXXII, pp. 76-80.
In the following year, Raleigh's consent was obtained by Hakluyt and
some merchants of Bristol, to the sending out of another expedition,
under Martin Pring, with some of Gosnold's men aboard, for the purposes
of trade.[71] The little company, in their two vessels, coasted along
the shores of Maine, explored Massachusetts Bay and Plymouth Harbor,
overlooked by Gosnold, and having loaded their ships with the
much-desired sassafras, went back to England, to confirm Gosnold's good
opinion of the country. This was to receive still further confirmation
from Weymouth two years later.
Footnote 71:
Purchas, _Pilgrimes_, vol. XVIII, pp. 322-28.
During these two years Elizabeth had died, and Raleigh had been
convicted of treason. Such rights as he may have possessed to the land
of North Virginia were ignored, therefore, when the Earl of Southampton,
Thomas Arundell, and others dispatched Weymouth to find a suitable place
for colonizing in the parts visited by Gosnold and Pring. This was the
real intent of the expedition, although it was given out that it was for
the discovery of the Northwest Passage.[72] There is some evidence that
the proposed colony was to be for Roman Catholics. At least, Sir George
Peckham and Sir Thomas Gerrard, who claimed to be assignees of the
Gilbert patent, had secured the privilege for Romanists of becoming
colonists, and the Earl of Southampton and his leading associates in the
present venture were of that faith.[73] Weymouth spent about a month on
the coast, exploring the shores about the St. George's Islands and the
river of the same name.[74]
Footnote 72:
“We found the land a place answerable to the intent of our discovery,
viz. fit for any nation to inhabit.” “Rosier's Relation,” in Burrage,
_Early English and French Voyages_ (New York, 1906), p. 371. Sir F.
Gorges, “A Briefe Narration of the Originall Undertakings, etc.,
1658,” in _Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll._, Series III, vol. VI, p. 50.
Footnote 73:
_Calendar of State Papers, Colonial, America and West Indies,
1574-1660_, p. 695 (hereafter cited as _Cal. State Pap., Col._); J. P.
Baxter, _Sir Ferdinando Gorges and his Province of Maine_ (Prince
Society, Boston, 1890), vol. I, p. 65.
Footnote 74:
The river was formerly thought to be the Kennebec. Cf. Burrage, _Early
Voyages_. In Burrage's edition of _Rosier's Relation_ (Gorges Society,
Portland, 1887), there is an exhaustive survey of the literature.
The English, however, had not been the only explorers upon the New
England coast, nor to them only had it begun to appeal as a possible
place for colonizing. For the French, as well as the English, the
sixteenth century in America had been a period of exploration, of
staking out of vague claims, and of unsuccessful efforts to establish
permanent settlements. The first decade of the seventeenth was to
witness the success of both nations in the latter undertaking, the
English at Jamestown in 1607, and the French at Quebec but one year
later, so close was the race between them. In the territory of New
England, however, both nations were to try, and fail, within the same
period; and citizens of both countries had already, from time to time,
received grants of undefined extension in that general part of the
world, when finally a charter with definite bounds was assigned by the
French King to the Sieur de Monts, in 1603. This grant embraced all the
territory between the 40th and 46th degrees of latitude, or from
Philadelphia to Montreal.
The issuance of this patent was immediately followed by an attempt at
settlement, de Monts and Champlain, both of whom had previously been in
Canada, sailing with a hundred and twenty men in the spring following
the receipt of the grant. Buildings were erected, and the first winter
passed on the island of St. Croix, in the mouth of the river of the same
name, which empties into Passamaquoddy Bay.[75] It was thus the first
authorized attempt to colonize any part of New England. The choice of a
site had been unfortunate, and in the following spring, the colony
removed to Nova Scotia, where it lasted two years more before the
cancellation of the grant resulted in its abandonment. A lively and
entertaining account of life in the colony was written by a genial
lawyer, who was one of its members, and the attention with which
American affairs were then being watched is indicated by the appearance
of an English translation in the same year in which the original came
out in Paris.[76] During the three years of his stay, Champlain was
indefatigable in exploring the coast, making three principal voyages
along the shores of New England, which he described and mapped as far
south as the present settlement of Chatham, in Massachusetts.
Footnote 75:
H. S. Burrage, _Beginnings of Colonial Maine_ (Portland, 1914), p. 32.
Footnote 76:
Marc Lescarbot, _Histoire de la Nouvelle France_; Paris, 1609.
The coast of Maine and the shores of Massachusetts Bay were carefully
studied for sites for settlement, and the former was for long to form a
debatable land between French and English. These years also saw the
foundation laid of the friendship between French and Indian, which was
to cost the English dear. De Monts's patent contemplated trade with the
natives, rather than an agricultural colony; and the French empire in
America, as has already been noted, consisted mainly of a series of
trading-posts. It was to the interest of the French that the Indian
should remain, as he himself wished, a hunter; whereas the growth of the
English agricultural colonies denied him the possibility of continuing
his savage life, without, on the other hand, absorbing him into
civilization. It was not merely that the French, in the main, were
tactful and friendly, accepting the Indian as he was, and even
intermarrying, while the English were harsh and disdainful. It may be
said that one Indian required to sustain his life approximately as many
square miles as the English agriculturist, with his domestic animals,
needed acres. On the other hand, the uses to which the French put the
soil were identical with those for which it served the savage. The
English, indeed, “bought” land, which the French never did; but the
French and the Indian shared the soil to the profit of both, while the
English deprived the native of his means of subsistence, in exchange for
coats and beads.[77] Not that they did so intentionally; but the
consequence was inevitable. Nor was it the Indian alone who was to fall
before the farmer and founder of towns. The French _coureurs des bois_,
and traders in the scattered posts, were likewise to fall and, in part,
for the same reason.
Nevertheless, at the time of the first authorized English attempt to
colonize New England, the French were, if anything, ahead in the race.
Champlain's knowledge of the coast and its possibilities was quite as
accurate, probably, as that of Gosnold or Pring or Weymouth, though
English writers usually give many pages to the latter trio while
dismissing Champlain in a line or two. A definite grant of the territory
had been made, and the first colony of their hereditary enemy was
seemingly successfully started within the limits of the English patent,
when King James affixed his signature to that document. A struggling
little settlement in Virginia, however, was to prove the undoing of the
French in the north, and win the New England coast for the English,
though not without further effort on the part of its future settlers.
But, whatever the local successes of French or English, it must not be
forgotten that the colonies of both nations were mere pawns in the game
of European policy, and that the allegiance of the colonist was to be
determined in the last analysis, not by their own comparative strength
on faraway shores, but by the strength which the two nations could put
forth in their navies on the sea.
Footnote 77:
Ellis, _The Red Man_, p. 242; J. Winsor, “The Rival Claimants for
North America,” _American Antiquarian Society Proceedings_, 1894, pp.
415-17.
[Illustration:
Manuscript Map of the New England Coast, 1607-8, believed to have been
drawn by Champlain
Original in [Library] of Congress.
]
CHAPTER III
THE RACE FOR EMPIRE
During the period upon which our story now enters, all of North America
was claimed by the three contestants for empire—Spain, England, and
France. The claims of the first covered the entire western world beyond
the line established by the treaty of Tordesillas; while those of the
other two are indicated, at least as to their minimum extent, by the
patents granted. Adrian Gilbert, in his application to Queen Elizabeth,
had asked leave to “inhabit and enjoy” all places discovered between the
equator and the North Pole;[78] and although these limits are nowhere
given in any single charter, those granted to various companies show
English claims extending from at least 10° to 52° North Latitude, or
from Panama to Labrador.[79] Following the difficulties of colonizing in
Maine and Nova Scotia, mentioned in the last chapter, the French King
granted to Madame de Guercheville all of the continent from Florida to
the St. Lawrence, thus overlapping the Spanish and English claims.[80]
Footnote 78:
W. R. Scott, _Constitutions and Finance of English and Irish
Joint-Stock Companies to 1720_ (Cambridge, 1910), vol. II, p. 244.
Footnote 79:
The southern limit was that of the Providence Company (Scott,
_Joint-Stock Companies_, vol. II, p. 327); and the northern that of
the Newfoundland Company, (D. W. Prowse, _History of Newfoundland_
[London, 1895], pp. 122-25).
Footnote 80:
F. Parkman, _Pioneers of France in the New World_ (Boston, 1909), p.
303.
The title to newly acquired lands, originally deriving validity from
Papal sanction, even in the eyes of Englishmen, had gradually come to
rest upon the right of discovery.[81] This theory was based upon the
principle of Roman Law that the finder could appropriate what belonged
to no one. A heathen was considered as _nullus_, hence his property had
no owner, and American soil could be appropriated by whoever first found
it. Although it was agreed by all that discovery must be consummated by
possession and use, there were two very difficult questions, as to which
the law was silent, in connection with the new situations now arising.
One of these was the length of time which might elapse between discovery
and taking possession, before the claim should become invalid through
failure to consummate the discovery; while the other was that of the
extent of territory involved by the above acts.[82] The claims of the
three contestants were preposterous, though no one more so than another,
perhaps; and, in the absence of any superior authority, it is difficult
to see how the matter could have been settled otherwise than by power of
the sword, which thus replaced the Pope as arbiter. At the time we are
now considering, it would seem as if, theoretically, England's claim to
any part of the New World were the least valid of the three. Although it
was necessarily based solely on the voyage of Cabot, she had made no
effort to colonize for nearly ninety years, and as yet had failed to do
so successfully. To the south, Spanish titles were, in part,
unassailable;[83] while in the north, French claims were being made good
by the struggling colony at Port Royal, and by scattered traders in
furs.
Footnote 81:
Henry II asked and obtained the Pope's consent to conquer Ireland. W.
B. Scaife, “The Development of International Law as to newly
discovered Territory,” in _American Historical Association Papers_,
vol. IV, p. 269.
Footnote 82:
_Cf._ B. A. Hinsdale, “The Right of Discovery,” in _Ohio Archeological
and Historical Quarterly_, vol. II, pp. 351-78; and Scaife,
“International Law,” pp. 269-93.
Footnote 83:
The number of colonists living in Spanish possessions varies greatly
in estimates. DeLannoy thinks that it may have been 152,000 by 1574
(DeLannoy and Van der Linden, _Histoire de l'Expansion Coloniale des
Peuples Européens_ [Paris, 1907], vol. I, p. 414); while
Leroy-Beaulieu puts it as low as 15,000 in 1550. _De la Colonisation
chez les peuples modernes_ (Paris, 1898), vol. I, p. 5.
The treaty of peace with Spain, in 1604, which followed almost
automatically upon the accession of James to the English throne, changed
the situation in important respects with reference to the success of
English colonization. Privateering, which, in spite of many brilliant
exploits, had become “a sordid and prosaic business,” and decreasingly
profitable, came to a legal end temporarily under the English flag. It
is true that certain of the larger venturers in the trade merely flew
the Dutch flag instead, and continued their depredations; but the
calling no longer offered its former opportunities, either for restless
spirits or for the employment of capital. The more legitimate commerce
with the Spanish possessions, such as the import of salt from Venezuela,
which had grown to large proportions during the war, was also ended by
the terms of the treaty, which completely surrendered English rights of
trade with the Indies.[84]
Footnote 84:
A. P. Newton, _The Colonising Activities of the English Puritans_
(Yale University Press, 1914), pp. 13-17.
Meanwhile, the amount of capital seeking investment had become large,
and owing to the enormous increase of bullion, the changed feeling in
regard to the taking of interest, and other causes, it was rapidly
growing larger.[85] It was also becoming more fluid, as was labor,
likewise. Contemporary, as well as many modern, authorities, have
considered England as suffering from over-population at this time; but
it is doubtful if this were so; and it is probable that the material for
colonization came rather from “the displacement and disturbance of
population” than from its growth.[86] Not only the substitution, to a
considerable extent, of sheep-grazing for farming, and the inclosure of
the common lands, but the gradual breaking up of the whole mediæval
system of trade and conditions of labor, had resulted in an
extraordinary amount of idleness and vagabondage for several
generations.[87] During the same period had occurred also the enormous
rise in prices, and in the cost of living, with results very similar to
those which we are now experiencing.[88] As to-day, they were severely
felt by people with approximately fixed incomes; and the country gentry
in particular, with their lands let on long leases, suffered greatly.
During the war, younger sons, and the more enterprising of all classes,
had had an opportunity to gain a living by embarking on a career in
privateering or other warlike pursuits; but with the coming of peace,
those openings were for the most part closed to them. On the other hand,
the scale of living had risen rapidly, and extravagance required a much
greater outlay than in former days. “In a time wherein all things are
grown to most excessive prices,” wrote Harrison as early as 1577, “we do
yet find the means to obtain and achieve such furniture as heretofore
hath been unpossible.”[89]
Footnote 85:
W. Cunningham, _English Industry_, vol. II, pp. 77 _ff._
Footnote 86:
E. P. Cheyney, “Some English Conditions surrounding the Settlement of
Virginia,” in _American Historical Review_, April, 1907, p. 526.
Footnote 87:
F. Aydelotte, _Elizabethan Rogues and Vagabonds_ (Oxford, 1913), pp.
3-20.
Footnote 88:
_A Discourse of the Commonweal of this realm of England_, 1581;
reprinted, Cambridge, England, 1893.
Footnote 89:
Harrison's Introduction to Holinshed's _Chronicle_, reprinted as
_Elizabethan England_ (London, n. d.), p. 118.
During the war, moreover, the older channels of legitimate trade had,
for the most part, been closed to the English merchant, who found
himself cut off “from Spain, Portugal, Barbary, the Levant, and, to a
considerable extent, from Poland, Denmark, and Germany.”[90] The
seventeen years prior to the death of Elizabeth had been years of
depressed business, now, in turn, to be followed by a like period of
prosperity, while trade continued fairly good until 1636.[91] Although
other elements entered into the problem, it may be noted that the
efforts to colonize, whether near home in Ireland, or far off in the new
world, had been failures when general business was poor, and successful
when it became good.[92] Neither in Ulster nor in Munster, in
Newfoundland, Virginia, nor Guiana, had the individuals or their
associates, who had obtained grants, been able, as yet, to plant any
permanent settlements.
Footnote 90:
Scott, _Joint-Stock Companies_, vol. I, p. 98.
Footnote 91:
_Ibid._, pp. 465 _ff._
Footnote 92:
_Cf._, however, Leroy-Beaulieu, who thinks that “la colonisation
anglaise eut donc pour origine une nécessité réelle, une crise
économique intense.” _Colonisation_, vol. I, p. 91.
The time, nevertheless, was evidently growing ripe for accomplishment.
Apart from any political or religious motives, America was as certain to
be colonized in the early part of the seventeenth century as it was to
be discovered by Columbus, or someone else, in the latter part of the
fifteenth. After the fall of Calais in 1557, England, though fearful of
the future, had turned her back definitely and forever upon continental
conquest and entanglements, and had embarked boldly upon those waves
which it was to become her pride to rule.[93] With the seas safe for
traffic, with a host of younger sons and other men suffering from the
economic conditions of the time, with the growing need in England of
many commodities found in the new world, with the great growth of
capital seeking investment, and with the trade of practically every
other portion of the earth already in the hands of corporate companies,
English merchants and adventurers could not fail to turn again, with
ampler resources and better methods, to the land where they had already
tried and failed. The Muscovy Company controlled all trade with Russia,
the Eastland that with the Baltic, the Levant that with Venice and the
East, while another controlled the African west coast, and the East
India Company held from the Straits of Magellan around to Africa
again.[94] Although these companies, which were almost wholly owned in
London, aroused the jealousy of Plymouth, Southampton, and the other
provincial ports, which found themselves limited to a little nearby
continental and coasting trade, they pointed the way to the corporate
form and joint-stock undertakings as the successful method of handling
large business enterprises, such as colonizing was now realized to be.
Footnote 93:
A. B. Hinds, _The Making of the England of Elizabeth_ (New York,
1895), p. 138.
Footnote 94:
S. R. Gardiner, _History of England_ (London, 1895), vol. I, p. 187.
This was clearly brought out by an unknown author, who, probably toward
the end of 1605, wrote the paper known as “Reasons for raising a
fund.”[95] The writer strongly advocated the raising of a “publique
stocke” for “the peopling and discovering of such contries as maye be
fownde most convenient for the supplie of those defects which the Realme
of England most requireth.” It is likely that this paper, which was
intended for Parliament, had considerable influence in the granting of
the Virginia charter, and it is, therefore, interesting to note that, at
the very beginning of successful colonization, one of the leading points
in future English colonial policy was thus touched upon. It is often
lost to sight that practically the sole value of her colonies to England
all through the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries was the
value of their trade, and the most important part of that trade, during
nearly all of the period, was in supplying her with such materials as
she lacked at home. In this respect, her West Indian colonies became
more important than her continental ones, though an exaggerated emphasis
has been laid upon the contemporary importance of the latter, in part
because they chanced to revolt, whereas the island colonies did not.
Footnote 95:
For discussion as to authorship and date, _vide_ Brown, _Genesis_, pp.
36-42, where the document is printed in full.
As one of the reasons for raising a public fund to assist in colonizing,
our unknown author went on to say that “private purces are cowld
compfortes to adventurers,” and pointed to the “marvelous matters in
traficque and navigacon” which the Hollanders had accomplished, in few
years, by a “maine backe or stocke.” Whether the paper was written in
order to obtain the Virginia charter, it is impossible to say; but
apparently it was, and, in any case, that charter was issued on the 10th
of April, 1606. The great revolution in foreign trade, which had been
going on for the past two centuries, was now complete, and the period of
chartered companies, foreshadowed by the formation, in the latter part
of the sixteenth century, of the few already noted, was well under
way.[96] With the addition of the East India Company, chartered in 1600,
the existing English companies covered practically all known parts of
the world except America; and during the next generation about the only
companies organized were for the new world—North and South Virginia in
1606, Guiana, 1609, Newfoundland, 1610, Northwest Passage, 1612,
Bermuda, 1615, New England, 1620, and Massachusetts, 1629.
Footnote 96:
_Cf._ P. Bonnassieux, _Les grandes Compagnies de Commerce_ (Paris,
1892), pp. 510 _ff._
There was a very close connection between many of these great companies.
The East India, for example, was practically an outgrowth of the
Levant;[97] while of the two hundred and three members of the Virginia
Company, one hundred and sixteen were members of the East India, and
thirteen of the Muscovy, ten were to become interested in the
Newfoundland, one hundred in the Northwest Passage, forty-six in the
Bermuda, and thirty-eight in the New England companies. Members of the
Virginia Company were also represented in the African, Levant, Guiana,
Guinea, Eastland, Providence, Irish Plantation, and other stock
enterprises.[98] To the noblemen and merchants thus brought into close
working relations, America was but one of the many irons which they had
in the fire, and by no means the most important. Their interest, as that
of their successors, was naturally in British trade as a whole, and not
in the success of any particular colony, much less in its religious
bickerings or political aspirations. From the very beginning, the trade
of the Empire was considered paramount to that of any unit, even in
England itself. At this very time, King James, in pressing for the union
with Scotland, expressed what was later to become the established
policy. “It may be,” he said, “that a merchant or two of Bristow or
Yarmouth may have a hundred pounds lesse in his packe; but if the Empire
gaine and become the greater, it is no matter.”[99]
Footnote 97:
W. W. Hunter, _History of British India_ (London, 1899), vol. I, p.
244.
Footnote 98:
Compiled from Brown, _Genesis_, pp. 811-1068.
Footnote 99:
Cited by Scott, _Joint-Stock Companies_, vol. I, p. 132.
These two points thus early made, namely, that the value of colonies lay
in their contributing to the empire products otherwise obtainable only
from foreigners, and that the interests of the empire as a whole were
paramount to those of any section, were well understood by those at the
head of colonizing enterprises, and must have been understood also by
the more intelligent of the early planters themselves. These views
naturally would continue to be held by those who remained at the centre
of the empire in England; while those who dwelt on its periphery, in
many scattered settlements, would as naturally, in time, tend to lose
sight of them, and to consider their own particular interests as greater
than those of the empire. The struggle between these centripetal and
centrifugal forces was bound to result in warping the imperial
structure, though in one case only was it to end in the breaking away of
a part of the system. Adjustments, continuing even to the present day,
were to save the rest intact; but it is interesting to note the germs of
conflict present from the very beginning. The forces which brought that
conflict about were operative, in varying degrees, not only in North
America, but throughout the entire empire, and extended back to its
unconscious inception.
The charter granted in 1606 provided for the formation of two colonizing
companies, one of which was authorized to plant anywhere on the American
coast between latitudes 34° and 41° North, and the other between 38° and
45°, provided that, should either, or both, choose to settle in the
overlapping strip of three degrees, they should not plant within one
hundred miles of each other.[100] The patentees of the first company
were residents of London, while those of the second were of Plymouth,
the companies thus becoming known as the London and Plymouth companies
respectively. Among the patentees of the latter, which embraced New
England, were Thomas Hanham, Raleigh Gilbert and George Popham, although
the names of the two who are thought to have been the prime movers in
the whole enterprise, Chief Justice Popham and Sir Ferdinando Gorges, do
not appear. Practically all those connected with it had seen service in
the Spanish war, and many had already been interested in attempts to
colonize in America and elsewhere. The charter, together with the
instructions issued by the King some months later,[101] reveals a mixed
organization, partly proprietary and partly royal. The patentees were to
provide the capital and colonists, and to have control of the trade,
which was to be carried on by means of “magazines,” or joint stock; but
the King, through the provision of a royal council appointed by himself,
retained in his own hands the government of the entire province from 34°
to 45°. Two local councils, one for each company's territory, were
appointed by the royal council, with power to govern the affairs of each
colony under the king's instructions. Land could not be granted to
individuals by the patentees, but only by the king, upon application in
their behalf by the local council for the colony in which it was
located.[102]
Footnote 100:
Hazard, _Historical Collections_ (Philadelphia, 1792), vol. I, pp.
50-58.
Footnote 101:
Brown, _Genesis_, pp. 64-75.
Footnote 102:
Osgood, _American Colonies_, vol. I, pp. 25-35.
Both companies at once took steps to plant their colonies, the Plymouth
being the first in the field, although to the London Company was to
accrue the earliest lasting success. The latter's expedition, including
in its members Bartholomew Gosnold, who had already been in New England,
and Captain John Smith, who later was to become a factor there, sailed
from London in three ships, on December 20, 1606. Arriving in Virginia
the following spring, they established themselves at Jamestown, and so
founded, what, in spite of many vicissitudes, was to be the first
permanent English settlement in America.
Meanwhile, the Plymouth Company, mainly by virtue of the activity of Sir
Ferdinando Gorges, who became indefatigable in his colonizing ardor, and
of Chief Justice Popham, had also commenced operations. In 1600 had
occurred Gorges's unfortunate connection with the revolt of Essex, which
had blasted his character in the eyes of the Puritans, and so served,
perhaps, to embitter his future relations with Massachusetts. He had
been for some time reinstated as Governor of Plymouth, when Weymouth
returned from his voyage in 1605; and from him Gorges obtained
possession of the three natives whom the captain had kidnaped on the
coast of Maine. Having learned much from them of the nature of the
country and its inhabitants, he despatched a vessel under Captain Henry
Challons, in August, four months after the granting of the charter, with
strict instructions to take the northern route to Cape Breton, and then
to follow the coast southward to the place the natives had
described.[103] Challons disobeyed the order, went southward by the West
Indies, and was captured by the Spaniards, some of the crew, with
himself and the two natives, being carried to Spain, and others, by
accident, to Bordeaux. The latter, after having filed claims with the
authorities of the port, and left a “Letter of a Turnye,” returned to
England, as did also, after some time and difficulty, Challons
himself.[104]
Footnote 103:
Gorges, “Briefe Narration,” _Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll._, Series III, vol.
VI, pp. 51 _f._ Various members of the company were associated with
Gorges, but he seems to have been the leader in this venture, as
Popham was in the next. An account of the voyage, written by John
Stoneman, the pilot, is in Purchas, _Pilgrimes_, vol. XIX, pp. 284-96.
Footnote 104:
J. P. Baxter, _Sir Ferdinando Gorges_, vol. III, pp. 129-32, 168;
_Cal. State Pap., Col., 1675-76_, p. 53.
Although the little ship of fifty-five tons had carried only twenty-nine
Englishmen, it had been the intention to leave some of them for
settling, “if any good occasion were offered”; and the Chief Justice had
also dispatched a ship, under Captain Hanham, to meet and assist
Challons in the enterprise. This, of course, he was unable to do; but he
explored the shore, taking back with him to the company “the most exact
discovery of that coast that ever came into their hands.”[105] The
reports were considered so encouraging that a much more considerable
effort was next made by the adventurers.
Footnote 105:
Gorges, “Briefe Narration,” p. 53. No account of this voyage has been
preserved, although Purchas had one in his possession written by
Hanham. _Vide_ Purchas, _Pilgrimes_, vol. XIX, p. 296.
On May 31, 1607, two ships, the Gift of God and the Mary and John, were
dispatched from Plymouth under command of Raleigh Gilbert and George
Popham, a relative of Sir John.[106] The vessels became separated on
June 29, and did not meet again until August 7, among the St. George's
Islands, off the coast of Maine.[107] Having reached the mouth of the
Kennebec, then called the Sagadahoc, the colonists explored the stream,
and finally chose for their place of settlement a point at its mouth, on
the high ground of the peninsula of Sabino.[108] They landed on the
19th, when they had a sermon preached to them, and listened to the
reading of their patent and laws. The next day they began the building
of their fort, named St. George, followed by the dwellings and
storehouse and the first boat built in America.
Footnote 106:
Always stated to have been his brother, until Brown threw doubt upon
the point; _Genesis_, pp. 791, 968.
Footnote 107:
“Relation of a Voyage to Sagadahoc,” _Mass. Hist. Soc. Proceedings_,
vol. XVIII.
Footnote 108:
H. O. Thayer, _The Sagadahoc Colony_ (Gorges Society, Portland, 1892),
pp. 167-87.
Meanwhile, the Spaniards were by no means oblivious of what was going
on, both in North and South Virginia; and to the zeal of the Spanish
ambassador in London in keeping his master posted as to the
encroachments of the English upon his territories, we owe the
preservation of a drawing of the fort in the infant colony, which he
obtained from some one who had been there.[109] From the first
discussion of the Virginia charter, Zuñiga had written frequently to the
King, telling him of the plans and doings of the English, and advising
strong action to prevent their settling. For some years, Spanish spies
were kept at Jamestown, who regularly sent home word of what was going
on, by means of renegade English sailors, while evidently there was also
a traitor at Sagadahoc, as even in the Royal Council itself.[110] A
vessel was once dispatched by Spain to wipe out both the colonies; but
the crew proved faint-hearted, and no attack was made upon either, the
King, moreover, having some hope, apparently, that both would
conveniently prove failures of themselves.
Footnote 109:
Reproduced by Brown, _Genesis_, p. 190. _Cf._ also _Ibid._, pp. 183
_ff._
Footnote 110:
Correspondence in Brown, _Genesis_, p. 117 and _passim_; also _The
First Republic in America_ (Boston, 1898), p. 91. _Cf._ I. A. Wright,
“Spanish Policy toward Virginia,” in _American Historical Review_,
April, 1920, pp. 448 _ff._ and _Cal. State Pap., Col., 1675-76_, pp.
45 _ff._
At first, however, all went well at Sagadahoc, and early in October the
Mary and John was sent home to carry word of the colony.[111] The
account brought back so pleased Gorges that he wrote a letter, “late at
night,” to Sir Robert Cecil, to tell him of the “greate newes.” But he
was doomed to disappointment. A couple of days later he had evidently
heard more, and in a second letter wrote that the settlement was getting
into trouble because of “childish factions, ignorant, timerous and
ambitious persons.” Popham, who had been made president of the colony,
he described as “an honest man, but ould, and of an unwieldy body, and
timerously fearfull to offende, or contest with others that will or do
oppose him, but otherways a discreete, carefull man.” Gilbert was
declared, by hearsay, to be “desirous of supremacy, and rule, a loose
life prompte to sensuality, little zeale in Religion, humerouse,
headstronge and of small judgment and experience, other wayes valiant
inough.”[112] The next ship brought a letter from Popham to the King,
but no better news for the company than the first, in spite of the
president's enthusiastic belief in the presence of nutmegs, cinnamon,
and “other products of great importance,” in the imaginatively tropical
climate of Maine.[113]
Footnote 111:
_Cf._ note on the “Movement of the ships,” Thayer, _Sagadahoc_, pp.
192 _ff._
Footnote 112:
Baxter, _Sir F. Gorges_, vol. III, pp. 154 _f._
Footnote 113:
_Maine Historical Society Collections_, vol. V, pp. 357-60.
During the winter, which was unusually severe, the storehouse was
burned, with most of the provisions; and before the arrival of the two
supply ships sent out from England, Popham, the leader of the colony,
died. The ships carried yet more serious news to the colonists in the
death of the Chief Justice in England, which proved “such a corrosive to
all, as struck them with despair of future remedy.”[114] A later ship
brought word of the death of Sir John, Gilbert's elder brother, which
necessitated that leader's returning to England to look after his
affairs. The colonists, in view of all these circumstances, resolved to
quit the place, and return with Gilbert; and so all “former hopes were
frozen to death,” and, by October, the wilderness of Maine was abandoned
by the English, as, five years before, it had been by the French.[115]
Footnote 114:
Gorges, “Briefe Narration,” p. 55.
Footnote 115:
Attempts have been made to magnify the importance of the colony, and
even to insist upon its continued existence. Following the publication
of the uncritical _Popham Memorial_, Portland, 1863, 98 pamphlets and
articles appeared in six years. The literature is surveyed by Thayer,
_Sagadahoc_, pp. 87-156.
The character of the colonists, and, more particularly, the unusual
sequence of accidents, were enough to account for the failure of the
attempt, without invoking, with Gorges, “the mallice of the Divell” to
explain it. The company at home became thoroughly discouraged, and no
further efforts were made to plant a settlement, although Sir Francis
Popham, son of the late Chief Justice, continued to send over vessels
for some years for trade and fishing, and it is probable that no year
now passed without the temporary presence of Englishmen upon the
coast.[116] In connection with the obtaining of a new charter by the
South Virginia Company, in 1609, the adventurers in the Northern Company
were offered the opportunity to join with the Londoners on favorable
terms, and to form with them “one common and patient purse,” an
opportunity of which some of them availed themselves.[117]
Footnote 116:
Gorges, “Briefe Narration,” p. 56; “Briefe Relation,” Purchas,
_Pilgrimes_, vol. XIX, p. 271.
Footnote 117:
Brown, _Genesis_, pp. 238-40.
Although temporarily abandoned as a site for colonizing, the coast of
North Virginia was by no means deserted, and the events of the next few
years there were of great importance to the future history of the
territory. Hudson, an Englishman employed by the Dutch, coasted along
its shores during the famous voyage on which he explored the river which
bears his name;[118] and the following year, Argall and Somers,
attempting to sail from Jamestown to Bermuda, were blown out of their
course, and having made for the North Virginia coast, spent some time
along it, fishing for cod.[119] Upon Hudson's voyage was based the Dutch
claim to their portion of North America. The validity of such a claim to
the country immediately about the Hudson would depend upon the
interpretation of the two difficult points in connection with titles
noted at the beginning of this chapter.[120] Any such claim extended by
Holland to the coasts of the present eastern New England, however, could
have no standing whatever, as French and English explorations in that
exact locality had been both prior in date and far more thorough. The
only real dispute there lay between the English and French, which was
soon to be decided in the main by force. In fact, with three nations, to
say nothing of Spain, claiming the same territory, all basing their
claims upon discovery within a few miles of each other, even where
explorations did not actually overlap, the points raised were too fine,
in the then inchoate state of international law, to permit of any other
arbitrament.
Footnote 118:
G. M. Asher, _Henry Hudson the Navigator_ (Hakluyt Society, 1860), p.
63.
Footnote 119:
Purchas, _Pilgrimes_, vol. XIX, pp. 73, 84.
Footnote 120:
Leaving out of consideration the early coasting voyages, in which the
Dutch had no part whatever, they had recently been preceded to within
a reasonable distance of both the mouth and the source of the Hudson.
The English had made a detailed discovery as far as the entrance of
the Sound, while Champlain was within a few miles of the source of the
river some months before the Dutch ascended it. If rights of discovery
were to be limited only to the points actually visited, with no
extension thence in any direction, the country would have become a
veritable checker-board of warring nationalities. The Dutch themselves
held no such view, and claimed all the land from Cape Cod to Delaware
Bay, with indefinite limits toward the interior. Acknowledgment of any
such claim would have to be based upon a theory of extension which
would seem, therefore, equally to validate the claims of English and
French, arising in both cases from discovery prior to the Dutch.
When, owing to the annulling of De Monts's patent, the French colony at
Port Royal had been temporarily abandoned in 1607, de Poutrincourt, who
still retained his rights, intended to return speedily, and to continue
his settlement. Various delays, however, kept him in France for three
years, and it was not until the spring of 1610 that he again set sail.
The houses and their contents, untouched by the friendly Indians, were
found intact, and life at the little colony, which had thus been merely
interrupted, was resumed. In the following year, a certain Captain
Plastrier, who had been fishing near the Kennebec, complained to the
Sieur de Biencourt, Poutrincourt's son, that he had been attacked and
robbed by English, who claimed title to the coast.[121] These may have
been Captain Williams and his party, who were annually sent out by
Francis Popham, or Captains Harlow and Hobson, who were on the coast, in
1611, on a voyage of discovery and Indian-kidnaping, for the Earl of
Southampton.[122] Thus obscurely, off the New England coast, between a
French fisherman and English seamen, whose very names are unknown to us,
began that duel for empire between France and England, which was to last
a century and a half, and which was to decide the fate of the vast
continent of North America and the teeming millions of India. Clive and
Dupleix, Wolfe and Montcalm, were the successors of these humble
pioneers striving to assert the claims of their rival nations to the
empire of the world.
Footnote 121:
Brown, _Genesis_, p. 534.
Footnote 122:
The accounts of the latter voyage are slight. John Smith, in a page,
gives us all we know, and says nothing of Plastrier. _Works_ (ed.
Arber, Glasgow, 1910), vol. II, p. 696. Purchas had a full account,
which he did not print and which is now lost. _Pilgrimes_, vol. XIX,
p. 296.
The significance of the attack by the English was not lost upon the
young Biencourt, who “represented very earnestly” to his people how
important it was to “every good Frenchman” to prevent this usurpation by
the English of lands claimed by France, and occupied by her citizens
“who had taken real possession ... three and four years before ever the
English had set forth”—which was quite true in so far as related to
colonizing. In August, Biencourt made a trip along the shore of Maine,
stopping at St. Croix Island, where Plastrier had decided to spend the
winter, and thence down to the Kennebec, where he inspected the
abandoned site of the Popham colony, and made a careful examination of
the coast. At the island of Matinicus, where the attack on Plastrier had
taken place, he found some Englishmen fishing; but although he was urged
by some of his party to burn their ships, he would not do so, as they
were peaceful civilians, and contented himself with erecting a large
cross with the arms of France.[123]
Footnote 123:
Brown, _Genesis_, pp. 534 _f._
A couple of years later, under the more aggressive régime of Madame de
Guercheville and the Jesuits, an extension of French settlement toward
the south was attempted by the founding of a colony on Mt. Desert, which
was named St. Sauveur.[124] It was not, however, to remain undisturbed
for many weeks, for at a meeting of the Quarter Court of the Virginia
Company in London, in July, 1612, Captain Argall had been commissioned
to drive out foreign intruders from the country claimed under English
charters, and had sailed from England for that purpose.[125] After
wintering in Virginia, he proceeded northward the following summer, to
clear the territory as far as 45°, and promptly ran across the newly
established Jesuits on the Maine coast, being guided to them by Indians,
who were under the mistaken impression that the English were
friends.[126] The French, being taken wholly unaware, made practically
no resistance, the only one among their number who had presence of mind
enough even to fire their cannon, having forgotten to aim it. Argall
easily overcame such opposition, and having obtained possession of La
Saussaye's commission from the French King, proceeded to break up the
colony and dispose of his prisoners.[127] Fifteen of them, including
Biard and another of the Jesuit fathers, were taken back as captives to
Virginia, and the remaining thirty, in two small boats, allowed to take
their perilous way to rejoin their countrymen to the northward.
Footnote 124:
_Cf._ E. C. Cummings, “Father Biard's Relation of 1616”; paper read
before the Maine Historical Society, in 1893; _Proceedings_, pp.
11-18. Biard's account, from the Jesuit Relations, is reprinted by C.
H. Levermore, _Forerunners and Competitors of the Pilgrims and
Puritans_ (Brooklyn, 1912), vol. II, pp. 446, 522.
Footnote 125:
Brown, _First Republic_, p. 176; _Genesis_, pp. 709-23.
Footnote 126:
W. D. Williamson, _History of the State of Maine_ (Hallowell, 1832),
vol. I, p. 206, states, but without giving any authority, that there
had been Jesuits at Mt. Desert for five years.
Footnote 127:
The story of his having secretly rifled La Saussaye's trunks of his
papers, and then demanded them from him, seems hardly likely, in view
of other facts. It rests on the authority of Biard (“Relation,” in
Levermore, _Forerunners_, vol. II, p. 496). As to Biard's character
and credibility, _cf._ Biggar, _Trading Companies_, pp. 263-65.
Soon afterward, Argall, with three ships and the Jesuit Biard, who,
apparently out of personal rancor toward Biencourt, had turned traitor
to his former associates, again set sail from Virginia, for the purpose
of completely extirpating the French settlements. Revisiting St.
Sauveur, he burned the buildings, and tearing down the French cross,
erected another. Continuing his voyage, he put in at St. Croix, where he
likewise burned the buildings and confiscated the stores collected
there.[128] Arriving next at Port Royal, from which the inhabitants were
temporarily absent, a few miles off, after taking as booty even the
locks and nails from the buildings, as well as the food, ammunition, and
clothes of the unfortunate French, he burned the whole settlement to
ashes.[129] It is difficult to conceive of a more dastardly act than
thus to rob a peaceful colony of its stores, and then to render it
homeless on the approach of winter in a far northern country.
Footnote 128:
Biard, in Levermore, _Forerunners_, vol. II, p. 506. _Cf._ also the
English account in Purchas, _Pilgrimes_, vol. XIX, pp. 214-16, 271.
Footnote 129:
Biard and Purchas, _ubi supra_; also Biencourt's complaint, in Brown,
_Genesis_, pp. 725 _ff._ and _Cal. State Pap., Col., 1574-1660_, p.
15.
The action, however, if not the manner of it, fitted in with the English
temper of the time, which was becoming increasingly aggressive in
colonial matters. On the shores of India, as on those of North Virginia,
the cannon's mouth was announcing territorial decisions of vast import
for the future. Almost simultaneously with the operations of Argall in
Maine, Captain Best, off the Indian coast, was having a running fight,
lasting a month, with four Portuguese ships, attended by over a score of
galleys, against his own little fleet of only two vessels. As a result
of his brilliant victory against these overwhelming odds, the English
obtained their first permanent foothold in continental India.[130] The
glorious battle of Swally, and the petty raiding of Mt. Desert and Port
Royal, were alike mere incidents in the struggle of new forces let loose
by the age of discovery, and the transformation of the European nations
into world powers. The struggles between French and English in North
Virginia and India; between English and Portuguese in the Gulf of
Cambay; between Dutch and Spanish, or Dutch and Portuguese on many seas;
between English and Dutch in Guiana and on the Amazon and in the Spice
Islands of the East, must all be considered as but parts of one
stupendous drama. Everywhere along the edge of the world, traders and
settlers were being tossed on those stormy political waters, where met
the new tides of imperial ambition, fast flowing to the farthest
confines of the new-found seas.
Footnote 130:
Hunter, _British India_, vol. I, pp. 300-304.
In that portion of the drama with which we are particularly concerned, a
new figure now appears upon the scene, whose services to North Virginia
have been somewhat overrated by many, but whose personality remains a
matter of fascinating interest. Around few names in American history has
legend clustered more luxuriantly than around that of the South
Virginian hero Captain John Smith; and as to the real merits of few men
is opinion more diverse. Even though it must be frankly admitted that no
one will ever again think as highly of the Captain as he thought of
himself, yet much of the modern detraction from his character and
services is so evidently biased as to be critically of little value. The
main importance of his share in North Virginian colonization, unlike his
labors in the south, was in his capacity as author, and his efforts to
stimulate interest in the possibilities of the New World. He himself,
however, wished for and endeavored to achieve a more active part in the
settlement of the country to which he attached its present name of New
England.
He first saw its shores, on his only voyage thither, off the island of
Monhegan, in the spring of 1614, having been sent out by some London
merchants “to take Whales and make tryalls of a Myne of Gold and
Copper.”[131] If those failed, he wrote, “Fish and Furres was then our
refuge.” It was soon evident that the refuge was needed, and it proved,
fortunately, to be a goodly one, although along the New Hampshire and
Massachusetts coasts, he found that the French had recently preceded
him, and spoiled his market. While fishing for cod, and trading with the
Indians, he also explored a considerable part of the shore, and, as a
result of his observations, prepared a map, on which many of the names
still familiar to us appear for the first time.[132] In spite of all the
explorers who had preceded him, Smith asserted that the shore was “still
but even as a coast unknowne and undiscovered”; and historians formerly
dated the beginning of modern New England cartography from the
appearance of his chart. Without necessarily detracting from the
excellence of Smith's field-work, however, his claim to be the first
accurate cartographer of our coast has been dispelled by the discovery
of the excellent map transmitted by the Spanish ambassador in London to
King Philip in 1611, and found some years ago in the Archives at
Simancas.[133] This map, prepared for King James in 1610, shows that the
New England coast was well known, and had been well drawn, before ever
John Smith began his labors. It probably embodies the surveys made by
Gosnold, Archer, Pring, Weymouth, Champlain, and, perhaps, others, and
shows, for the first time, correctly drawn, such characteristic features
as the peculiar hook of Cape Cod. This very point had hitherto been
considered the distinguishing mark of excellence of Smith's map, drawn
six years later.
Footnote 131:
John Smith, _Works_, vol. I, p. 187.
Footnote 132:
For various states of the map, _vide_ J. Winsor, _Memorial History of
Boston_ (Boston, 1882), vol. I, pp. 52-56.
Footnote 133:
Printed for the first time by Brown, _Genesis_, p. 456.
However, if Smith's cartographical services cannot now be considered as
important as formerly, his work as a popularizer remains unimpaired.
Although the map of 1610, until published within the present generation,
continued in the form of a single manuscript copy, and was seen in its
day by few outside the inner circles of company promotion, Smith's was
published in a large edition, and, together with his _Description_,
which has not yet lost its charm, did much to spread a knowledge of New
England among the people. Many a man in disgrace with fortune must have
pondered his note for those “that have great spirits, and small meanes,”
and have read enviously of “the planters pleasures, and profits,” as set
forth by the plausible captain.
An act of cruelty, which occurred on Smith's voyage, was to bear
unforeseen results in the future. One of the captains, a rascal named
Hunt, kidnaped twenty-four savages, and sold them in Spain for slaves.
One of these, who was subsequently returned to his native land, was the
Squanto who so materially assisted the Pilgrims at Plymouth, as we shall
see later.
Of more immediate influence were the fish and furs with which Smith
reached London,—valued at £1500,—and which served to direct attention to
the possibilities of the region. It was, it is true, a trifle compared
with the £90,000 or more which the stockholders of the East India
Company were receiving from the annual voyages of their fleet; but
interest in colonizing as well as in trading was rapidly growing.[134]
In Ireland, where colonization ran a course curiously analogous to that
in America, settlement now proceeded rapidly.[135] In Newfoundland, two
colonies were founded, and in Bermuda people were said to be beginning
“to nestle and plant very handsomely.”[136] Little Englanders of an
early type, and opponents of chartered privilege, were not wanting,
indeed, to inveigh against the growing imperialism of the times. As “for
the Bermudas, we know not yet what they will do; and for Virginia, we
know not well what to do with it,” wrote one author; while Bacon
compared the visionary possibilities of America with the solid results
in Ireland.[137]
Footnote 134:
Hunter, _British India_, vol. I, p. 306.
Footnote 135:
Cheyney, “English Conditions,” pp. 514-21. For a report on a site for
a colony in Derry, which might be mistaken for an American
“prospectus” of the same period, _vide_ _Cal. State Papers, Ireland,
1608-1610_, p. 318. The items are curiously familiar: “the goodness of
the air and the fruitfulness of the land”; “the red deer, foxes,
conies, martins, otters”; “the great plenty of timber for shipping”;
“the commodious harbor”; “the infinite store of cods, herrings,” etc.;
“the sea-fowl in great abundance”; even the pearls.
Footnote 136:
_Cal. State Pap., Col., 1558-1660_, p. 15.
Footnote 137:
_The Trades Increase_, in _Harleian Miscellany_ (ed. 1809), vol. III,
p. 299; Brown, _Genesis_, p. 820.
While Smith had been ranging our coast, getting information, furs, and
fish, another expedition, despatched by Gorges, under Captain Hobson,
was seeking gold on Martha's Vineyard. Needless to say, he did not find
it, and, as Smith laconically remarks, he “spent his victuall and
returned with nothing.”[138] The tangible cash results of Smith's own
voyage pointed to him as the man whom the company needed, and by them he
was made Admiral of New England for life, and started on another voyage,
with two ships and Captain Thomas Dermer. He never again, however, saw
America. Owing to damages to his vessel, received in a storm only a few
days out, he was forced to return to Plymouth; and although Dermer went
on, we know nothing of his trip.[139] On Smith's next attempt, he was
taken prisoner by pirates; and on his fourth start, in 1617, for some
reason he never got out of Plymouth harbor.
Footnote 138:
Smith, _Works_, vol. I, p. 240.
Footnote 139:
_Ibid._, vol. II, pp. 731 _ff._
Voyages to New England now became frequent, however, and it is not
necessary to mention them all. In 1615, Sir Richard Hawkins was
exploring and trading for Gorges, whose agent, Richard Vines, probably
spent the following winter in Maine, bringing back with him the first
news of the great plague which was decimating the Indians, and which was
to simplify the question of settlement. As Gorges speaks of the “extreme
rates” at which he had to hire men to stay the winter quarter, it is
probable that he had other parties there, in this or other winters.
“This course I held some years together,” he wrote in his old age, “but
nothing to my private profit; for what I got one way I spent another; so
that I began to grow weary of that business, as not for my turn till
better times.”[140] The surprising part is, not that he grew weary, but
that he still continued the unprofitable business for a lifetime.
Footnote 140:
Gorges, “Briefe Narration,” pp. 57-62.
In 1618, he received a letter from Captain Dermer, in Newfoundland,
saying that he had there found Squanto, one of Gorges's savages, and
that the Indian's description of New England had made him desirous to
“follow his hopes that way.”[141] The next spring, therefore, the
indefatigable Gorges sent out Captain Rocroft to meet Dermer and
coöperate with him. Dermer, meanwhile, had returned to England; so
Rocroft failed to meet him, and after capturing a French barque off the
New England coast, sailed to Virginia, contrary to orders, and was there
killed in a quarrel. Gorges reimbursed the Frenchmen for the damages
suffered, and, in other respects, made a heavy loss on the voyage, from
which he recovered nothing.
Footnote 141:
Gorges, “Briefe Narration,” p. 62. He does not give the name of the
savage. The identity is established by Bradford, _History of Plymouth
Plantation_ (Boston, 1861), pp. 96 _f._
As soon as possible after Dermer's unexpected arrival in England, he was
again fitted out and sent to join Rocroft, who had meanwhile gone to
Virginia. Having missed his associate in the enterprise, whom he had
expected to find at Monhegan, Dermer sailed along the coast, making
observations, from Sagadahoc to Martha's Vineyard, and then on to
Virginia. Finding Rocroft dead, he wintered there, and went back to New
England in the spring.[142] Apparently on this visit, he returned
Squanto to his native Plymouth, where Dermer seems to have wished to
plant. “I would,” he wrote, “that the first plantation might hear be
seated, if ther come to the number of 50 persons, or upward”—a desire
which was to be fulfilled within a few months by the coming of the
Pilgrims.
Footnote 142:
This I take to be the explanation of the voyages, though he may have
returned to England between them. It seems certain that he was on the
coast in 1620. _Cf._ Dermer's letter in Purchas, _Pilgrimes_, vol.
XIX, pp. 129 _ff._; Gorges, “Briefe Narration,” pp. 61 _ff._; and
Bradford, Plymouth, pp. 95-98.
Meanwhile, the colony in South Virginia, at Jamestown, had been passing
through a long series of troubles, which on more than one occasion had
nearly ended its career. Those in its first years led the company to
publish _A True and Sincere Declaration_ as to the affairs of the
settlement, in which the form of government was given as one of the
roots of the evils which had “shaken so tender a body.”[143] As a result
of changes effected by the two subsequent charters, which they obtained
in 1609 and 1612, the London patentees were incorporated as a
joint-stock body, and their territory increased to a strip four hundred
miles wide, extending from coast to coast, which they were empowered to
grant to others.[144] The old Royal Council was replaced by one elected
by the members of the company, thus becoming subject, not to the king,
but to the fifty-six city companies, and to the six hundred and
fifty-nine individuals, who formed the membership of the enterprise at
the time of the 1612 charter. Governmental powers were also bestowed
upon it, and the colony thus became a proprietary province, with a
trading company as proprietor.[145]
Footnote 143:
Reprinted by Brown, _Genesis_, pp. 338-53.
Footnote 144:
Hazard, _Hist. Coll._, vol. I, pp. 58-81.
Footnote 145:
Osgood, _American Colonies_, vol. I, pp. 56 _ff._
The unfortunate results of the recent voyages in which Gorges had been
interested, so far from dampening his ardor, had made him more anxious
than ever to go on with his efforts. The governmental changes in the
charter for South Virginia, together, perhaps, with the enlargement of
its bounds, moved him to apply for a new charter for the northern
plantation.[146] A dispute in which he had become involved with the
southern company, regarding its rights to fish within the limits
assigned to the North Virginia patentees, which rights he denied, had
won for him the hostility of a part of the Virginia Company's
membership. As the new charter for which he had applied contained a
clause giving the New England Company a monopoly of the fishing along
their entire section of the coast, it was bitterly attacked by the
southerners, who had annually gone to the northern fishing-grounds for
an important part of their year's supplies. The dispute was taken into
Parliament, where Gorges defended himself with ability, and thence to
the King. The factional fight then in progress between Smythe and
Sandys, in the Virginia Company, led Smythe's party to support Gorges
against their opponents in their own company; and as Gorges had also
strengthened his cause by including among his associates many of the
influential nobles of the court, an order in council was finally issued
in his favor, on the 18th of June, 1621, for the delivery of the new
charter.[147]
Footnote 146:
Gorges, “Briefe Narration,” p. 64.
Footnote 147:
_Ibid._, pp. 64 _ff._; _Documents relating to the Colonial History of
State of New York_ (Albany, 1853), vol. III, p. 4; Thomas Pownall,
_The Administration of the British Colonies_ (London, 1777), vol. I,
p. 49.
Thus was originated the “Council established at Plymouth in the County
of Devon for the Planting, Ruling, and Governing of New England in
America,” which now became the proprietor of all the territory between
40° and 48° North Latitude, and extending from the Atlantic to the
Pacific, in utter disregard of the French claims in Nova Scotia and
Canada, and of the colonies planted there. The charter stated that there
were no subjects of any foreign power in possession of any part of the
territory, although Quebec had been settled for thirteen years, and
French fishermen and fur traders were constantly being met by the
English.[148] Upon the new company were bestowed rights of trading,
colonizing, and governing. The members were allowed to elect their own
officials in England, and to appoint those for ruling in the
settlements. The members of the Virginia Company numbered nearly a
thousand persons, who elected their council, and were responsible for
the administration of the colony; but under the Gorges charter, the
council was the whole company, limited to forty members, who were
self-perpetuating, and whose relation to the colonists was thus direct
and final.[149]
Footnote 148:
Charter in Hazard, _Hist. Coll._, vol. I, pp. 103 _ff._
Footnote 149:
_Cf._ Osgood, _American Colonies_, vol. I, pp. 98 _ff._
The new company was never either active or successful. The controversy
which had marked its slow birth tended to keep people from investing;
and from its narrow and monopolistic nature, it could make no appeal to
popular support. While the passage of the charter was still pending,
chance decreed that under it was to be made, even before its issue, the
first successful planting within its granted limits, and without efforts
of their own, the grantees, when they received the powers bestowed upon
them by the King, were to find the Pilgrim colony already established at
Plymouth.
CHAPTER IV
SOME ASPECTS OF PURITANISM
The history of the New England group of colonies was, in the main,
shaped throughout the entire prerevolutionary period by the influence of
three factors. These were the geographical environment, the Puritan
movement in England, and the Mercantile Theory. The first of these has
already been discussed, and the last will be more particularly referred
to later. As the second was not only a continuing influence during the
period, but was the chief determinant in the small settlement of
Plymouth, and an element in the great migration to Massachusetts, it
must be considered before entering upon the story of those two colonies.
The first difficulty in dealing with the problem of Puritanism is to
define the term itself. The earliest appearance of the name seems to
have been about 1566, and in the following year a certain London
congregation was spoken of as “Puritans or Unspottyd Lambs of the Lord.”
The members of this congregation, which met secretly in Plumbers Hall,
called their sect “the pure or stainless religion”; and the derivation
of the name Puritan, for long a term of reproach, is sufficiently
obvious.[150] Its application, however, is less so. Part of the
confusion is due to the fact that, like “democratic” and many other such
words, it has been applied to an attitude toward life, to a broad
movement, and to a definite political party. Moreover, between the
meeting of those “Unspottyd Lambs” in Plumbers Hall in 1567, and the
overthrow of the Puritan Commonwealth of England in 1660, nearly a
century elapsed, during which the meaning of the word underwent the
changes which time always brings to words of its class, whereas it still
continues as a living term in our social and religious vocabulary.
Rigidly and briefly to define a word which has thus had a vague and
changing content throughout a dozen generations is impossible. To
attempt to confine its definition to only one of its former meanings is
unhistorical, however desirable it may be that an author should define
it as used by himself in his own writings. Not long ago it was
fashionable to decry, as showing total lack of scholarship, any attempt
to apply the name to the men who founded Plymouth, it being considered
as applying solely to those who founded Massachusetts. It may be true
that “the Separatists were not Puritans in the original sense of the
word”;[151] but the word did not retain its original sense, and although
Separatist and Nonconformist represent a real difference, the word
Puritan may well be used to cover both. The pendulum, indeed, seems now
to be swinging the other way, and several writers describe Puritanism
broadly as an “attitude of mind,” or as “idealism applied to the
solution of contemporary problems.”[152] As specific terms for the many
sects and minor currents in the great movement, which for a time
dominated the history of both the Englands, are by no means lacking, it
would seem desirable to retain the use of the word Puritanism in its
widest application, and it is so used in the present work.
Footnote 150:
C. Burrage, _The Early English Dissenters in the Light of Recent
Research, 1550-1641_ (Cambridge, 1912), vol. I, pp. 84, 93. Hinds, in
_The England of Elizabeth_, p. 19, traces “the first whisper of that
sound” to Calvin's letter of 1554.
Footnote 151:
Burrage, _English Dissenters_, vol. I, p. 34. _Cf._ E. Channing,
_History of the United States_ (New York, 1916), vol. I, p. 272 _n._
Footnote 152:
Channing, _History_, vol. I, pp. 271 _ff._; G. B. Tatham, _The
Puritans in Power_ (Cambridge, 1913), p. 2; and R. G. Usher, _The
Reconstruction of the English Church_ (New York, 1910), vol. I, pp.
244-46.
The idea of unity seems to possess a peculiar fascination for the
average human mind. Only a savage or a philosopher may be content with,
or rise to, the conception of a pluralistic universe. Moreover, the
desire to conform, and to force others to do so, is as typical of the
average man as of the average boy.
It is in but few persons, and in rare periods, that the spirit of
unrest, of dissatisfaction, of growth, manifests itself so strongly as
to overcome the innate tendency toward static conformity. The mediæval
period was essentially, for the most part, one of religious unity. For
long, the two great ideas of the Empire and the Church had dominated
men's minds. With the Renaissance and the Reformation, however, arose
again, not only nationalities, but individualities. With the growth of
the separate nations, developed simultaneously a new sense of individual
responsibility in the face of the universe. For the average man during
the Middle Ages, the moral, even more than the economic, life had been
corporate. Outward conformity to the dogmas and usages of the only
church which then represented Christ's Kingdom upon earth lulled his
thoughts, and soothed his conscience. The necessity of belonging to the
Church was not forced upon a man merely by fear of persecution or of the
public opinion of his own little world. His belief in such a relation,
and his ignoring the possibility of any other, had become as innate and
instinctive as his belief in the physical laws of the universe by which
he guided his daily life. It was not alone the historians of the period
who were “content to be deceived, to live in a twilight of fiction,” as
“the atmosphere of accredited mendacity thickened.”[153] The subtle
poison had flowed through the veins of the entire social organism.
Footnote 153:
Lord Acton, _Lectures on Modern History_ (London, 1907), p. 5.
As the idea of nationality grew and rooted itself in the mind of the
masses, it attracted to itself, by a sort of mental gravitation, the
institutions and thoughts of the peoples. Everywhere, the religious
reformation had been closely allied with secular politics, and the
reformed churches became national. As universal empire had gradually
given place to nations, so the universal church was in part broken into
state churches, but without any loosening of the bond which bound the
individual to them. The idea of _the_ church persisted, and the average
man considered separating himself from it almost as one would consider
separating one's self from the civil state of to-day. It was almost as
unthinkable and impossible to realize in practice. His life was so
interwoven with it, his civil rights, as well as his religious duties,
were so involved in his relations to it, that, even if he disagreed with
its dogma, disliked its policy, or strove within it to alter both, he
had no thought of leaving it. To do so would have been to constitute
himself a religious anarch. Not only were the mental inhibitions to the
development of such an idea greater than those operating in the case of
political anarchy to-day, but the pains and penalties attending the
action, both from law and from public opinion, were also greater.[154]
Footnote 154:
_Cf._ Usher, _Reconstruction_, vol. I, p. 273
One of the most dynamic ideas, however, which had come in with the
Reformation, was that of the responsibility of the individual to God,
both for his own life and for that of others. To those whose minds were
open to receive it, the thought came with a force which was almost
overwhelming. In the training of youth, it is well recognized that
responsibility must be thrown upon them gradually if their characters
are to grow normally, and not be warped or broken under sudden strain.
But here were men, in many cases incredibly ignorant of the Christian
story, to whom the very existence of such a book as the Bible had been
unknown, and whose faith and conduct had been regulated for them for
centuries. Suddenly they found themselves in possession of the original
sources in their own tongues, and were told that the eternal salvation
of their souls was no longer in the keeping of the institution upon
which they had always leaned with the unconscious confidence of a child
upon its parents. Inspired by a new sense of their importance as
individuals, and, in the majority of cases, by a self-confidence born of
ignorance, earnest men undertook to interpret the scriptures, and to
revise the existing ritual, dogma, and government of the Church. Extreme
individualism on all these points was the natural result. Sects, often
counting only single congregations in their numbers, arose everywhere.
Separatism was the logical end of these discontents and strivings; but
men are not logical in their actions, and separatism formed but a small
element in the Puritan movement. Where it did occur, the disintegrating
force did not usually stop there, but continued to plague, with petty
and ignoble quarrels, the little groups thus split off.
Not only were the Separatists logical, but their action required far
more courage than that of the mere Nonconforming Puritans. Not only did
the act itself call for a higher degree of intellectual daring, but the
penalties attached to it were greater. In many cases, Nonconformity, so
far from entailing loss or suffering, possessed a distinct money and
social value; but no highly paid cure or easy berth in the household of
a Puritan nobleman awaited the Separatist. Misguided as many of the
latter may have been, and disappointing as were many of the Separatist
movements, it would seem that, on the whole, the Separatists possessed
more sincerity and loyalty to their ideas than the Puritans who remained
within the Church. This the great majority of them did. The number of
Separatists, like the number of Puritans generally, has usually been
overstated in the past. The twenty thousand Brownists mentioned by
Raleigh in 1593 have dwindled, under the light of modern critical
research, to a mere five or six hundred at most.[155]
Footnote 155:
Burrage, _English Dissenters_, vol. I, p. 152.
When the ordinary man gets a new idea, it does not necessarily dislodge
the old ones that may be antagonistic to it, or even greatly modify
them.[156] The tendency to cling to the established church was as strong
in the minds of most Puritans as was their self-confidence in their own
beliefs and superior sanctity, and their desire to alter the Church to
suit them, whether in the earlier demands in the matter of vestments, or
the later in matters of polity and doctrine. Thus the survival of the
mediæval idea of the Church, coupled with the new one of individual
judgment and responsibility, led the conservative Puritans to adopt a
half-way policy as compared with the Churchmen and the Separatists.
Footnote 156:
“Unless we allow for the innate capacity of the human mind to
entertain contradictory beliefs at the same time, we shall in vain
attempt to understand the history of thought in general and of
religion in particular.” J. G. Frazer, _Adonis, Attis, Osiris_ [_The
Golden Bough_] (London, 1907), p. 5 _n._
Under Henry VIII there had been little change, save in the single fact
of the break with Rome, and the substitution of King for Pope as the
head of the Church. The ecclesiastical property had, indeed, been
largely confiscated and distributed among the laity so as to create a
powerful economic interest in the maintenance of the King's supremacy.
By the fact of that supremacy, religious questions had become political,
and important changes would necessarily in time have to be made in
church administration and discipline. Otherwise, however, there was
little alteration, and apparently but two out of the King's subjects
refused to conform to the new order.[157] Although further progress was
made under Edward, the reign of Mary restored the union with Rome, and
sent many exiles to Frankfort, Geneva, and other centres of the
Protestant movement on the continent.[158]
Footnote 157:
D. Neal, _The History of the Puritans_ (New York, 1843), vol. I, p.
34.
Footnote 158:
Hinds, _The England of Elizabeth_, pp. 6-68.
On the accession of Elizabeth, the refugees flocked back to London, keen
to work into the fabric of the English church the religious ideas which
they had imbibed and developed during their exile. The bulk of the
clergy, however, were not desirous of innovation, and seem hardly to
have been affected by the controversies raging at the time.[159] Of the
nine thousand four hundred serving the Church under the Pope in Mary's
reign, fewer than one hundred and eighty, or less than two per cent,
refused the Oath of Supremacy under Elizabeth.[160] Not only had the
parish priests thus accepted with indifference the various changes,[161]
but the laity in the country districts, especially in the north, had
scarcely been touched by the Reformation. When Elizabeth came to the
throne, the distracted country needed, above all else, peace and unity.
The fifth of her house to reign in the period of about seventy-five
years since the end of the long War of the Roses, she found a nation yet
suffering from the severe economic effects of that protracted crisis,
and a church rendered unstable in doctrine and almost impotent in
discipline by the four alternations between Roman and Protestant
allegiance which had occurred in less than a quarter of a century. The
question of her own legitimacy, bound up as it was with the question of
religious authority, and the extreme delicacy of international political
relations, especially with Spain, France, and Scotland, added
difficulties to the problem of church settlement.[162]
Footnote 159:
H. Gee, _The Elizabethan Clergy and the Settlement of Religion,
1558-1564_ (Oxford 1898), pp. 1 _ff._
Footnote 160:
J. Brown, _The Pilgrim Fathers of New England and their Puritan
Successors_ (London, 1906), p. 26; Gee, in _Elizabethan Clergy_, p.
247, estimates that not many more than 200 were deprived between Nov.
17, 1558, and Nov. 17, 1564, for refusal to acknowledge the
Elizabethan settlement. These were mainly Roman Catholics.
Footnote 161:
One is reminded of the satirical verses on Richard Lee of Hatfield, on
his conforming again in 1662:—
Three times already I have turned my coat,
Three times already I have changed my note,
I'll make it four, and four-and-twenty more,
And turn the compass round, ere I'll give o'er.
Cited by F. Bate, _The Declaration of Indulgence, 1672_ (London,
1908), p. 30.
Footnote 162:
_Cf._ F. W. Maitland's chapter on “The Anglican Settlement and the
Scottish Reformation,” in _Cambridge Modern History_ (New York, 1918),
vol. V, pp. 550-99.
An established church was a necessity from all three standpoints, of
religion, morals, and politics. Here and there, a few zealots might
organize their own congregations and support a preacher; but any sort of
congregational church government was out of the question for the
overwhelming mass of the people, who were ignorant and indifferent, but
still superstitiously devoted to the old Roman forms. The moral
sanctions of the time were, moreover, far more closely involved with
religion than they are to-day, and the church was far more essential as
a prop to a government none too strong. The situation called for the
opportunist policy which the Queen always favored in every difficulty.
Whatever may have been her own religious beliefs or lack of them, which
cannot now be known, she never cared for religious persecution, but she
cared everything for a strong and united England. Although conformity
was necessary to prevent the disintegration of the national life, the
standards to which she required men to conform were purposely left so
vague as to permit all but the most advanced of Protestant sectaries and
most irreconcilable of Romanists to become members of the Church of
England.
Opportunism may temporarily save a dangerous situation, but cannot be
pursued successfully as a permanent policy. The course of events led
extreme Catholics to feel that the Church had advanced so far that they
could not follow it, and the ultra-Puritans to consider that it had
stopped so short that they could not stay for it. To an opposition, all
things, theoretically, seem possible. The practical difficulties are for
those who have the responsibility of power. By the end of Elizabeth's
reign, the Catholics realized that the most they could hope for would be
toleration; and the real struggle for the control of the organization
lay between the Puritans and those who wished the Church to continue its
middle course. It must be pointed out, that this struggle of the Puritan
Nonconformists was in no sense for toleration. They had as little
thought of it as the Inquisition itself, nor did they exercise it when
in power, either in old or New England. In that regard, the Separatist
John Robinson, preaching to his little congregation in Leyden, was as
far ahead of the Puritan leaders in England, as Roger Williams was of
the leaders of Massachusetts.
As has already been seen, only two men failed to conform to the change
under Henry in 1534, and less than two per cent were forced from their
cures when Elizabeth introduced the Oath of Supremacy. In the great
deprivations under James and Archbishop Bancroft, following the adoption
of the Canons of 1604, the most careful sifting of all the records
indicates that less than three hundred Puritan clergy were deprived of
their livings.[163] On the other hand, when the Puritans came into
power, out of eighty-six hundred clergy of the Church, the livings of
approximately thirty-five hundred, or over forty per cent, were
sequestrated.[164] The Nonconformist struggle was not for toleration,
but for control. Indeed, the objection of the Puritans to the Court of
High Commission itself, to which they sometimes voluntarily carried
their own cases, and which had a certain popularity that has largely
been lost to sight, was not so much that it was an instrument of
oppression, as that at times it was turned against themselves.[165]
Footnote 163:
Usher, _Reconstruction_, vol. II, pp. 3-14.
Footnote 164:
Tatham, in _Puritans in Power_, pp. 91 _f._, gives from 3,000 to
3,500. In his monograph on _Dr. John Walker and the Sufferings of the
Clergy_ (Cambridge Univ. Press, 1911, p. 132), he states 3,500 as the
probable number.
Footnote 165:
R. G. Usher, _The Rise and Fall of the High Commission_ (Oxford,
1913), pp. 72, 105, 329.
One of the claims made for them is that they constituted a large
percentage of both the clergy and the laity, and embraced a great part
of the learned men of the church, and were therefore entitled to guide
the organization. This claim does not stand the test of rigid
criticism. As exhaustive a list as possible, giving every doubtful
name to the Puritans, shows not over three hundred Puritan clergy in
the church between 1600 and 1610, or about three per cent of the
establishment.[166] There are no figures available for the laity, but
computations based on various methods of estimating the numbers yield
totals equivalent to from two to six per cent of the population. These
figures may be too low, but it must be considered that the common
people, particularly in the country districts, were inert to a much
greater degree even than to-day, and their normal attitude toward the
clergy might well have been summed up in the dictum of the choir in
Hardy's “Under the Greenwood Tree,” that “there's virtue in a man's
not putting a parish to spiritual trouble.”
Footnote 166:
Usher, _Reconstruction_, vol. I, pp. 249-51.
On the other hand, again, as tending unduly to swell the estimated
number of Puritans, it must be remembered that the great landlords
possessed the gift of many livings, and if one of them, from any motive
whatever, turned Puritan, all of his livings could be bestowed upon
Puritan clergy, and the congregations would be nominally counted as
Puritan. For example, to cite by no means the most influential of a
group which included such men as the Earl of Warwick, we may note that
Sir Robert Jermyn controlled ten livings in one archdeaconry, while nine
other laymen controlled sixty-five more.[167] Thus these ten men—chosen
somewhat at random—owned seventy-five livings; and, upon their declaring
themselves Puritans, not only would seventy-five clergy have to become
Puritans, to be acceptable, but, if we place their congregations as low
as two hundred each, we would have fifteen thousand laity thus attending
Puritan churches as a result of the religious or other motives which had
moved ten landlords to number themselves with the Saints. This indicates
how impossible it is to calculate the number of Puritans who were such
by sincere conviction.
Footnote 167:
_Ibid._, p. 270.
As to the learning of the Puritan clergy, the latest researches also
fail to bear out the earlier controversial claims on their behalf. Of
the two hundred and eighty-one men whose names are known, one hundred
and seventy-six had no university degree, while of the remainder, only
thirty-one were higher than Masters of Arts.[168] There were, indeed,
Puritan divines eminent for learning, but the proportion of university
men among them was no higher than is known to have been the case among
the Conformists.
Footnote 168:
Usher, _Reconstruction_, vol. I, p. 251.
Hence the Puritans were but a small minority, both of the clergy and of
the laity. The instinct of fair play, which leads a man to side with the
under-dog, without stopping to consider whether the upper-dog may be not
only upper, but justified, induces us to lay great stress on the rights
of minorities, on the theory that a majority can take care of itself.
Minorities, however, are usually vocal, organized, and zealous, while
the majority is dumb, unwieldy, and but little inclined constantly to
resist the attacks of all the various minorities in the field. If there
is reason to condemn the Church in England for requiring the Puritan
minority to conform, then the Puritans themselves must be condemned just
as strictly for their oppression of the minorities in New England. There
cannot be two canons of judgment for the same act; and, in fact, as we
shall see later, the Puritans there in power were, if anything, the more
guilty of the two.
There is much truth, however, in the doctrine of the saving remnant;
and, in the low condition of morals in the early seventeenth century, it
may well be that the Puritan element was that remnant by which England
was saved, as well as New England founded. For morality had sunk to a
low ebb, and, even if the reality was not as black as it was painted by
Puritan writers, we know enough to realize that there was sore need of a
reforming zeal which should cleanse society of its rapidly accumulating
filth. That zeal was provided almost wholly by the Puritans. Not but
that there were plenty of moral and able men in the other party, who
were striving with the problems of the day as well as the Unspotted
Lambs and Saints—striving, perhaps, with better understanding and more
breadth of view. But that was not what the moral situation called for.
Luckily the more extreme of the Puritans were thoroughgoing fanatics;
for nothing less than a good dose of fanaticism seemed likely to purge
England of its social evils. But that is a different matter from
fanaticism erected into a permanent compulsory system, or from the
attempt to control an organization by three per cent of its membership;
and it must be admitted that there was much to be said on the side of
Archbishop Bancroft and the Church. Not only was the small number of the
Puritans known to him, and also their methods, which were by no means
above reproach, but their refusal to coöperate in an effort to reform
one of the worst abuses confirmed his belief that their real desire was
not for reform but to force their views on the other ninety-seven per
cent of the clergy and the nation, and to gain control of the
ecclesiastical machinery of the State Church.
He was thoroughly familiar with the facts that modern research has
brought to light in regard to the methods of securing signatures to the
various petitions presented to the King, and knew how much less they
represented than they purported to.[169] Very real abuses in the Church,
which were undoubtedly largely responsible for the low spiritual state
of the people at large, were those of pluralities, non-residence, and
lack of properly qualified preachers, although the number of clergy
holding more than one living has been exaggerated. To a very great
extent, the reason for the practice, as well as the cause of the great
number of inferior, and even immoral, men, who were to be found in the
Church, was economic. As we noted in an earlier chapter, the period had
been one of an unexampled rise in prices, and in both the cost and scale
of living. The tithes, which supported the clergymen, had originally
been paid in kind, but had gradually been commuted into money payments
at a time when prices were low, and the general manner of living far
inferior to that of the later Elizabethan period. In 1585, over one half
of all the clergy received salaries of less than £10 each;[170] of
these, approximately three thousand received less than £5, and one
thousand but £2 annually, or less.[171]
Footnote 169:
Usher, _Reconstruction_, vol. I, pp. 45, 291, 294, 412. On the
unreliability of Puritan petitions in other cases also, _cf._ Tatham,
_Puritans in Power_, pp. 59 _ff._
Footnote 170:
J. Strype, _Life and Acts of Archbishop Whitgift_ (Oxford, 1822), vol.
I, p. 371.
Footnote 171:
Usher, _Reconstruction_, vol. I, p. 219.
Pluralism and ignorant preachers were the only possible spiritual fruits
of such an economic system, though the use of pluralities was abused by
some of the higher clergy. Bills were introduced in the Parliament of
1604 for the increase of the incomes of the parish priests, thus
striking at the root of the trouble; but they were shelved by the
Puritan Commons, though the Puritans were loud in their denunciation of
these very evils.[172] By means of contributions, however, they
increased the pay of their own clergymen, so that a Puritan incumbent
might expect from two to three times what a Conformist might be paid in
a similar cure. At a time when over half of the clergy were receiving
less than £10, one Puritan of the Dedham Classis received £50, several
others from £30 to £70, a Mr. Dalby £40, another £50, yet another £73, a
Puritan assistant £33, and one Puritan congregation which offered over
£46 had difficulty in finding any reformer who was willing to accept so
small an amount.[173] Here at any rate, was a very tangible reward for
those who felt that they could remain in an institution which they
condemned, while they drew pay from both sides. Many a poor devil of a
sincerely conforming parish priest, struggling along on two or three
pounds a year, must have wondered whether it were not worldly-wise to
turn Puritan; and a Separatist had to console himself with a logical
position and a comfortable conscience.
Footnote 172:
_Ibid._, p. 352; It was said that three quarters of the House was
Puritan, but this is doubtful. S. R. Gardiner, _History_, vol. I, p.
178.
Footnote 173:
Usher, _Reconstruction_, vol. I, pp. 274 _f._
Advocates of the Puritans, in an effort to prove that their minds were
not absorbed by squabbles over petty details of vestments and symbols,
have explained at length the importance of such matters in that age; and
they are quite right. The Puritan attack, however, was not merely
against the surplice, or minister who did not preach, or immorality in
private life, as it certainly was not for liberty of conscience. It was
obvious to those in authority that what the reformers desired was a
change of the established church government into the Presbyterian form,
with themselves in control. Masson claims that between 1580 and 1590
there were not less than five hundred beneficed clergy who practically
maintained a Presbyterian organization within the body of the
Church.[174] Although these numbers may be somewhat too large, evidence
was continually cropping out which showed that the Puritans wished not
only to gain control of the Church, but to substitute the Presbyterian
discipline in its place.[175] Marsden, like many other writers, has
raised the questions whether the points at issue were really vital, and
whether more “Christian meekness and moderation” should not have been
shown “even to the obstinate.”[176] From the standpoint of the
administration of a great organization, upon which rested the
responsibility of maintaining what it believed to be essential both to
the Church and to the State, it must be admitted that these things did
seem vital, just as they seemed so to the small Puritan minority. If
they were not vital, then we must impugn either the good faith or the
intellectual ability of the entire mass of Puritans who fought for them
so bitterly; and if they were, then it must be conceded that they were
quite as much so for the majority in power as for the minority in
opposition.
Footnote 174:
D. Masson, _Life of Milton_ (London, 1875), vol. II, p. 532.
Footnote 175:
Usher, _Reconstruction_, vol. I, pp. 42 _ff._, 347 _ff._; J. B.
Marsden, _The History of the Early Puritans_ (London, 1853), pp. 78
_ff._
Footnote 176:
Marsden, _Early Puritans_, p. 168.
The ecclesiastical struggle between the Nonconforming Puritans and the
Church, then, was fundamentally administrative. It came down to the
question whether a powerful organization, which thoroughly believed in
itself and its own importance, as all powerful organizations and vested
interests come to do, should allow itself to be turned out of control by
a small minority, whose attitude it considered detrimental, not only to
itself, but to religion and the State. There could be only one answer.
Had it not been for the survival of the mediæval idea as to the
necessity of belonging to the Church, it is possible that those Puritans
who were actuated purely by spiritual motives would have followed the
more consistent Separatists, and merely have withdrawn from the body
with whose government and usage they were no longer in accord. In that
case, the way would have been cleared for the great moral influence
which the Puritans exerted, without the embittering results of the
struggle, and the reaction of 1660 against Puritanism as it showed
itself when in political power. On the other hand, political liberty
might have been the loser.
In theological dogma, the Puritans had, at least until the later period,
but little quarrel with the Church. Both were largely under the
influence of Calvinistic doctrine, although there was considerable
latitude of belief among individuals of both parties. The central pivot
of their creed was the absolutely unconditioned will of God.[177] The
system, which is strongly tinged with legal doctrine, acknowledges no
law but that of his untrammeled will. From this flow two consequences.
One is that there is no room for a non-moral sphere of activity, for
actions which, belonging merely to the domain of nature, are untinged by
moral obligation. The other is the doctrine of predestination, by some
considered the central point of the Calvinistic theology. “God not only
foresaw the fall of the first man, and the ruin of his posterity in
him,” wrote Calvin, “but also arranged all by the determination of his
own will.”[178] The decree involved both election and reprobation.
Except for this decree, all human beings, including those to whom the
gospel had never been preached, and the baby who died at his first
breath, were condemned to hell forever. God, however, chose certain
individuals as his elect to be saved, foreordained from all eternity by
“his gratuitous mercy, totally irrespective of human merit.” The rest He
condemned eternally, by “a just and irreprehensible but incomprehensible
judgment.”[179]
Footnote 177:
W. Walker, _John Calvin_ (New York, 1906), pp. 409-29; _cf._ also P.
Schaff, _Creeds of Christendom_ (New York, 1877), vol. I, pp. 451
_ff._
Footnote 178:
John Calvin, _Institutes of the Christian Religion_, translated by J.
Allen (Philadelphia, 1844), vol. II, p. 170.
Footnote 179:
Calvin, _Institutes_, vol. I, p. 149.
Although this decree, being eternal and immutable, could not be altered
by anything that the individual could do, as he was forever blessed or
damned irrespective of his character or conduct, yet, since the wills of
those chosen as the elect were in harmony with God's will, by careful
observation of one's own actions it might be possible to lift the veil
and discover whether one were, perhaps, of the elect or not. Hence all
those torturing self-examinations and searchings of heart, which fill so
much of the early Puritan letters and diaries. Such doctrine, though
apparently stripping God of every shred of what we consider moral
character, would be of profound influence upon that of those who truly
believed it; and the Puritan believed with extraordinary tenacity. His
imagination was wholly concentrated on questions of religion, and that
religion was a “narrow Hebraism” which “kept open its windows toward
Jerusalem, but closed every other avenue to the soul.”[180] His creed
must not be considered as merely a series of logical deductions from the
Bible, which appealed to him solely through the intellect. Heaven and
hell were as vividly visualized by him as external facts.[181] In the
early seventeenth century this doctrine was a living thing, the
word-pictures not having lost their reality by long familiarity and much
repetition.
Footnote 180:
J. F. Jameson, Introduction to _Johnson's Wonder-Working Providence_
(New York, 1910), p. 16.
Footnote 181:
_Cf._ S. N. Patten, _The Development of English Thought_ (New York,
1904), p. 121; and B. Wendell, _The Temper of the 17th Century in
English Literature_ (New York, 1904), p. 227.
If it be asked how people who believed that no efforts that they could
make would save them from everlasting damnation, if not of the elect,
could possibly face life with any cheerfulness, the answer is that the
Puritans considered themselves as elected. Now and then a poor wretch
did torture himself with the belief that he was damned, and occasional
qualms were experienced by the staunchest; but, on the whole, the
terrible doctrine seems to have lost its greatest sting for the
individual in the comfortable assurance that, although the bulk of his
neighbors were going to hell, he himself was one of the everlasting
Saints. Such belief naturally fostered, too, that smugness of
self-assurance that has always been characteristic of Puritan reformers
in all ages, and also a hard intolerance. Those who did not believe as
the Puritans believed were not of the elect, and so were condemned by
God to eternal torment. No act of intolerance shown toward them by the
Puritans could thus compare with the almost unthinkable intolerance
displayed toward them by the author of their being. To show toleration
or mercy toward such was, logically, to exalt humanity above the deity.
To the Puritan, the reign of law was merely the reign of God's will, but
it was universal. No act was indifferent, either in the universe or in
the individual. John Winthrop's consideration of the special providence
of God, in permitting the discovery of a spider in some porridge before
it was eaten, was not merely Puritanical.[182] It was scriptural, and it
was to the Scriptures that every Puritan turned to ascertain the will of
God upon every detail of daily life. This obviously opened the way to
the most far-reaching tyranny to which men could be called upon to
submit, should those fanatically holding the view be in possession of
the civil power to enforce it. The tyranny of political despotism had
left untouched the whole vast field of private conduct, save in so far
as the acts of individuals might minister directly to the despot's
pleasure, wealth, or power. The conformity forced upon individuals by
established churches had left to the individual his whole freedom
outside of the limited relations to the establishment and its doctrines.
But the Puritan left no such free spaces in life. Nothing was so small
as to be indifferent. The cut of clothes, the names he bore, the most
ordinary social usages, could all be regulated in accordance with the
will of God. For him, that will was expressed once for all, and only, in
the Bible, and of that Bible the Puritan believed that he alone had the
key, and was the valid interpreter for the rest of mankind. The more
extreme of the sects, indeed, occasionally remind one of those hill
tribes of the northern Himalayas, who consider themselves so holy that
no one is allowed to touch their persons, while they alone are allowed
to approach the symbol of their god.[183]
Footnote 182:
R. C. Winthrop, _Life and Letters of John Winthrop_ (Boston, 1869),
vol. I, p. 69.
Footnote 183:
Frazer, _Adonis_, etc., p. 137.
In a trial before the High Commission, in 1567, of certain Puritans who
had hired a hall ostensibly for a wedding, and had then held an illegal
prayer meeting in it, one of them claimed that he should be tried only
by the word of God. “But,” said the dean, “who will you have to judge of
the word of God?”[184] The obvious answer, which every Puritan, from
then to now, has made, is that he alone is such an interpreter, not
merely for himself, but for the entire community. It was natural, with
the Puritans' idea of God, that they should take special delight in the
Old Testament. From it, almost exclusively, they drew their texts, and
it never failed to provide them with justification for their most
inhuman and bloodthirsty acts. Christ did, indeed, occupy a place in
their theology, but in spirit they may almost be considered as Jews and
not Christians. Their God was the God of the Old Testament, their laws
were the laws of the Old Testament, their guides to conduct were the
characters of the Old Testament. Their Sabbath was Jewish, not
Christian. In New England, in their religious persecutions and Indian
wars, the sayings of Christ never prevailed to stay their hands or to
save the blood of their victims.[185]
Footnote 184:
Usher, _High Commission_, p. 58.
Footnote 185:
This did not, however, imply any love for living Jews. _Cf._ D. deS.
Pool, “Hebrew Learning among the Puritans of New England prior to
1700,” in _American Jewish Historical Society Publications_, vol. XX,
p. 57.
From this attitude toward the Bible the doctrine developed, as Milton
wrote, that in that book God had once for all revealed all true
religion, “with strictest command to reject all other traditions or
additions whatsoever.”[186] It was upon this belief that the Puritan
took his stand in opposition to the Church. For him, truth had been
revealed once for all, in its entirety. Nothing could be added, nothing
could be taken away. To this deadening doctrine, the Church opposed the
idea of growth and development. Combine this theory of the absolute
finality of the truth, as revealed in books written centuries before,
with the Puritan habit of literal interpretation, and the verbal
application of sayings, torn from their context, to every occasion of
domestic and public life, and we have, not merely an engine of spiritual
and moral despotism, but one which was calculated to stultify all
liberty of thought. Once allow the body of men professing such doctrine
to dominate public opinion, or control the machinery of government, and
there would evidently be no limit to their deadly influence upon freedom
of intellect as well as of action. It is not a question of the personal
morality of its professors or of the nobility of their motives. Without
the vital idea of development, both would slowly harden into mere forms
and empty professions, while the human mind would lie shackled, debarred
from seeking new truth, or from making those experiments which alone
bring about healthy growth. The attempt was made, both in old England,
with its ancient civilization, and in the New, untrammeled, as far as is
ever possible, by any vestige of the past. It is one of the elements
that give unique interest to the history of New England as compared with
that of the other colonies on our coast. Had they all alike failed, no
interest would attach to the others, above that of scores of other
attempts to settle a wilderness. But in New England there was an effort,
under the most favorable conditions possible,—numbers, economic
resources, untrammeled freedom,—to found and govern a state solely by
the self-confessed elect of the community.
Footnote 186:
John Milton, _Of true Religion, Heresy, Schism, Toleration, etc._
(_Works_, London, 1806, vol. IV, p. 259.)
Puritanism was essentially a movement of protest, and so was largely
negative. In fact, to such a degree was it a matter of protest and
negation, that the Puritan became absolutely fascinated in his
contemplation of that first great protestor and protagonist of negation,
the devil himself. It has frequently been pointed out that, in the one
great poem which the movement has given us, the “Paradise Lost” of
Milton, the real hero is Satan, and that it is upon him that the poet's
interest centres. The Puritan's relations with the Deity were not merely
fatalistic, but were expressed in the legal form of a covenant in which
God and the individual were the contracting parties. Drama, or
melodrama, was supplied only by the devil, who, from that standpoint,
may almost be said to have been the saving grace of the Puritan
doctrine. Men become eloquent over what appeals to their interest; and
it is noteworthy that not only did the finest English Puritan poem
centre about the devil, but the finest American Puritan prose was to be
devoted to the horrors of hell, and that Jonathan Edwards was to find
the last touch to the felicity of Heaven in the saints' contemplation of
the tortures inflicted upon the damned by the Arch-fiend in the depths
below.
It was, as we have said, natural sympathy that attracted the Puritans to
the Old Testament, that long protest against paganism, with its “thou
shalt nots.” The positive side of the New Testament seems to have left
them singularly cold. Indeed, so little appeal did the words of even
Christ himself make, that, for once, they abandoned their literalism in
the quoting of texts, and doubted whether the use of the Lord's Prayer
should be permitted, as it savored too much of ritualism. The Puritans'
virtues were thus mainly negations. Their ideals were based almost
wholly upon mere avoidance of sin. They sought complete surrender of
will. Humanity, in their eyes, was so utterly an evil thing, that only
by an undeserved act of the grace of God was it possible that even a few
human beings could possibly do anything pleasing in his sight.
This is not an ideal which can permanently satisfy man's whole nature or
exert complete influence over him. It is a far cry back to the Greek
picture of the perfect life as the fullest development of the entire
man, body and soul. Whether that may not properly be a Christian ideal
also is not to be discussed here, but it is toward some such ideal of
self-expression that the ordinary man strives. His history is that of
the fuller and fuller development of his dual nature, in all its varied
aspects. Sometimes the emphasis is placed here, sometimes there, but it
is difficult to see what other subject can really be the central theme
of his earthly striving, and the history of it. Education, economic
struggles, law, government, liberty, “emancipation from superstition and
caste,” all must be traced through their long careers, but none are ends
in themselves. They are but the beginnings of opportunity, of no value
save in so far as they secure for man the most balanced development and
most perfect self-expression of which his nature is capable. To this
natural desire, the Puritan opposed the utter surrender of one's own
will to the divine will as expressed in minuteness of detail, applicable
to every need, even to the style of hats for a minister's wife, in the
old Semitic writings. At the time of the Puritan movement, there was
much rank growth in society. That growth needed a severe pruning, and
for that service the Puritan deserves all praise. But the pruning-knife,
after all, is only one of the garden implements, and a tree is pruned
that it may grow more abundantly.
This system of negation and protest might have done its needed work and
passed, had it not had the misfortune, from the moral and intellectual
sides, to come to dominate the power of government. At first Puritanism
claimed nothing that could really be termed a party. It may be compared
to the Labrador current, cold and invigorating, flowing through the
ocean of national life. As it proceeded, however, it met and united with
another great current, and the sweep and impetuosity of the two combined
carried with them the whole life of the nation, as neither could have
done alone. Much had been borne by the people during the reign of
Elizabeth, which it had become increasingly evident toward her end that
they would not submit to under any successor. The early years of the
Stuart dynasty indicated that a constitutional struggle, far
transcending the religious, was in preparation. It was by no means true
that all of those who were opposed to the King's views as to his
prerogative agreed with the Puritan views as to prelacy; but in the case
of many individuals, the two revolts were merged into one; and in any
case, the two movements, being both directed against the government,
would tend to unite, in order to make common cause against the same
enemy, though to attain their several ends. It is true that, in the long
run, the leading ideas of the Reformation led toward liberty and
equality, especially through the influence of that widely diffused
education which was a corollary of the new attitude toward the Bible. It
is a fallacy, however, to believe, because certain results have followed
certain causes, that, therefore, those results were striven for by the
men who endeavored to put those causes into motion, for the purpose,
perhaps, of securing results of quite another sort. The Puritan, at
least, was no more a believer in the political rights of an individual
as such, or in democracy, than in religious toleration, and the leaders
in Massachusetts denounced both with equal vehemence. Calvin himself,
who most fully represents the political philosophy of the movement, was
inconsistent and confused in his thought on the subject; and, as Gooch
has said, “modern democracy is the child of the Reformation, not of the
Reformers.”[187] The Reformation was much broader than the Puritan
groupings, and so was reform in the state; but the political leaders
realized the great force to be added to the struggle for civil liberty,
and welcomed the burning zeal of the religious malcontents. Thus arose
the Puritan party, strong alike in numbers and in purpose, and composed,
like all parties, of men infinitely varying in views and character.
Their united forces helped at once to create civil liberty under the law
and to establish a tyranny of public opinion.
Footnote 187:
G. P. Gooch, _The History of English Democratic Ideas in the 17th
Century_ (Cambridge, 1898), p. 8.
We have already seen some of the incentives that induced men to become
Puritans. As the movement grew, worldly motives, aside from the purely
religious or purely patriotic, would tend to influence an increasing
number. We have noted above how the financial sacrifice was frequently
made by the Churchman and not by the Puritan. Indeed, “many of wit and
parts,” wrote one of the most attractive of English Puritan women, “who
could not obtain the preferment their ambition gaped at, would declare
themselves of the puritan party,” while “others, that had neither
learning, nor friends, nor opportunities to arrive to any preferments,
would put on a form of godliness, finding devout people that way so
liberal to them, that they could not hope to enrich themselves so much
in any other way.”[188]
Footnote 188:
L. Hutchinson, _Memoirs of Col. Hutchinson_ (Everyman's Library,
1913), p. 65.
Moreover, there had for some time been growing up into prominence a new
class, which we now call the middle, and which had had no assigned
position under the feudal form of society. In the Stuart period, this
class was, for the first time, to impress its character deeply upon
national affairs. The activities by which, during the preceding two
centuries or more, its members had been gradually rising into their new
position had given a marked quality to their minds and characters.
Looked down upon by the noble, and disliked by the peasant, they
returned these feelings with interest. When the noble disdained their
birth and breeding, they in turn condemned the immorality of those above
them in both. Again the element of negation entered, and the Puritan
fostered an ideal which was the reverse of the lives of those who looked
down upon him. Puritanism became the “reasoned expression of the
middle-class state of mind,”[189] which it has always remained.
Footnote 189:
C. L. Becker, _Beginnings of the American People_ (New York, 1915),
pp. 81-85.
Among the leaders, however, as among the middle class and country
gentry, there was a group which had a very great influence, not only
upon the party in England, but upon colonization in America, and which
will concern us more directly. We must now turn to examine the
settlement of those two colonies in the New World which represented, in
the main, the earlier religious, and the later economic and political,
aspects of the English Puritan movement.
CHAPTER V
THE FIRST PERMANENT SETTLEMENTS
In 1606, in the obscure English village of Scrooby, in Nottinghamshire,
a little group of men, which included John Robinson, William Brewster,
and William Bradford, had for some years been meeting together in
Brewster's house for worship, and had formed themselves into an
Independent church. Robinson was a graduate of Cambridge, and had been a
Church of England clergyman in Norwich.[190] Brewster, after a short
attendance at Cambridge, had become connected, in some capacity, with
Davison, then Secretary of State, and had accompanied him to the Low
Countries in 1585. When Davison fell from power, Brewster's career at
court was ended, and at the time of the formation of the church in
Scrooby, he had, for some years, been occupying the position of
postmaster there, living in the old manor-house which had attracted the
covetous eyes of James the First.[191] A spiritually minded man of some
culture but of modest means, he was the most influential layman in the
little congregation, which, for the most part, was composed of the
untutored farmers and farm-hands of that remote rural district. With
little or no education, without even that sharpening of wits which comes
from mere contact in the more populous ways of life, they were, as their
own historian has said, only such as had been “used to a plaine countrie
life and the innocent trade of husbandry.”[192] That historian, William
Bradford, was himself of yeoman stock, and a mere lad of sixteen or so,
when the Scrooby church was formed.[193] Already one of the leaders in
the practical affairs of the church when scarcely more than a lad, he
developed into a man of sound judgment, as well as morals, and one whose
counsel was to be invaluable to the little colony in the New World, the
fortunes of which he was to share and chronicle. A student, and a writer
of a singularly pure English style, he seems also to have made himself
familiar with Dutch, French, Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, if we may believe
Cotton Mather's statement, which is, in part, borne out by other
evidence.[194]
Footnote 190:
O. S. Davis, _John Robinson, the Pilgrim Pastor_ (Boston, 1903), pp.
62-74. _Cf._ also C. Burrage, _A Tercentenary Memorial_; Oxford, 1910;
and W. H. Burgess, _The Pastor of the Pilgrims_; New York, 1920.
Footnote 191:
Bradford, _History of Plymouth Plantation_, ed. by C. Deane (Boston,
1861), pp. 409 _ff._; H. M. Dexter, _The England and Holland of the
Pilgrims_ (Boston, 1905), pp. 216-320. Scrooby was a halting place on
the great northern post-road, and the duties of “postmaster” were more
varied and important then than now.
Footnote 192:
Bradford, _Plymouth_, p. 11; Dexter, _England and Holland_, pp. 379
_ff._
Footnote 193:
J. Hunter, _The Founders of New Plymouth_ (London, 1854), pp. 101-15.
Footnote 194:
Cotton Mather, _Magnalia Christi Americana_ (ed. Hartford, 1855), vol.
I, p. 113.
The persecution that the little band underwent before the year of their
attempt to emigrate to Holland was, in the main, from neither church nor
state, but only such as they had to suffer from the scoffs and jeers of
their more easy-going and more commonplace neighbors and companions. In
1607, however, some one or more of these latter, possibly from a
neighborly desire to pay off a grudge, apparently laid a complaint
before the ecclesiastical authorities, of which the Commissioners of the
Province of York had to take note; and in November, Neville, Brewster,
and seven others were cited to appear. Neville, who did so, was allowed
to testify without taking the usual oath, and, after a short
confinement, was released without further trial. Fines were imposed upon
the others for non-appearance, but beyond that no action seems to have
been taken, nor were any efforts made to apprehend them.
According to the standards of the day, they were treated with leniency,
and there is little to indicate that they were “harried from the land,”
or that either the civil or ecclesiastical authorities were anxious to
interfere with them.[195] Justly dreading, however, what might happen,
rather than what had happened, and, perhaps, partly influenced by some
of the motives which induced them to leave Holland later, they decided
to flee from England secretly, and to establish a church in Amsterdam,
whither a neighboring congregation had already gone. To take their
departure legally, it would have been necessary to get the consent of
the authorities—a matter having nothing more to do with religion than
the granting of passports to-day. Neither money nor goods were allowed
to leave England without governmental permit; and, as the Scrooby group
intended to take both without such authorization, they had to leave
clandestinely. About one hundred of them made the attempt, but were
betrayed to the customs officers by the captain of the ship that was to
transport them. A certain amount of the discomfort and unpleasant
notoriety to which these simple and modest folk objected was undoubtedly
of necessity incidental to the simultaneous arrest of so large a body of
law-breakers. They were temporarily placed in confinement, for this
purely secular offense, and were well treated by the magistrates, who
“used them courteously, and showed them what favour they could.”[196]
The Privy Council, which had to be advised of the attempt to evade the
customs laws, acted promptly; and, in spite of the slow communication in
those days, within a month all but seven, who were considered the
ringleaders of the fugitives, were released and sent to their homes. The
seven, of whom Brewster was one, were also freed later, apparently
without even having been tried.
Footnote 195:
R. G. Usher, _The Pilgrims and their History_ (New York, 1918), pp. 19
_ff._; F. J. Powicke, “John Robinson and the Beginning of the Pilgrim
Movement,” _Harvard Theological Review_, July, 1920, pp. 261 _f._ This
article contains a criticism of Usher's somewhat extreme position.
Footnote 196:
Bradford, _Plymouth_, p. 12.
Some of the party reached Holland safely that autumn, and others made
another attempt some months after. At the very moment of embarking from
an out-of-the-way place, they were surprised by some of the country
people, who notified the authorities, and such of the passengers as had
not got on board were again taken into custody. Although they were known
to be breaking the laws, apparently no justice or court could be found
to punish them; and, when again set at liberty, they finally reached
Holland in safety. Neither the Privy Council nor the ecclesiastical
authorities had taken any notice of the matter. Not only had there been
little or no religious persecution, but even when the refugees had
obviously committed civil crimes these were officially condoned.[197]
Footnote 197:
Bradford, _Plymouth_, pp. 13-15; Usher, _Pilgrims_, pp. 27-31; E.
Arber, _The Story of the Pilgrim Fathers_ (London, 1897), p. 93.
After about a year in Amsterdam, owing to the quarrels that marred the
life of the church earlier established, the newcomers decided to remove
to Leyden, where they remained until the eventful year 1620.[198] Their
life in the old university town, although hard in many ways, seems to
have been singularly peaceful, and wholly unmarred by any of those petty
bickerings and contentions so curiously characteristic of the
ultra-godly of the period. They seem, indeed, to have valued “peace and
their spirituall comforte above any other riches whatsoever,” and to
have lived together in “love and holiness,” as Bradford wrote. Robinson
was their minister, and Brewster their elder, the latter eking out his
income by teaching English and printing Puritan books. The company
generally set to trades and handicrafts, by which “at length they came
to raise a competente and comforteable living,” and won the deserved
respect of their Dutch hosts.[199] They seem, however, to have lived a
life apart, and to have been but little influenced by the nation with
which they had cast their lot. In spite of extravagant claims to the
contrary, direct Dutch influence in New England, as derived through the
Pilgrims' sojourn in Holland, can be traced in but one particular, that
of marriage by a civil magistrate instead of a clergyman.[200] At that
time, Holland was, in almost all respects, far ahead of England
intellectually. In the matter of religious toleration she was
immeasurably in advance of the rest of Europe. Dutch influence would
have been a noble one, indeed, in New England's history, but there is
virtually nothing to indicate its presence.[201]
Footnote 198:
Bradford, _Plymouth_, pp. 16 _ff._
Footnote 199:
_Ibid._, pp. 17, 19, 412; Arber, _Pilgrim Fathers_, p. 195. Brewster
taught in Latin.
Footnote 200:
Bradford, _Plymouth_, pp. 101, 330.
Footnote 201:
The claims put forward by Douglass Campbell, _The Puritan in Holland,
England and America_, are now generally considered as thoroughly
unsound. _Cf._ the article by the Dutch historian, H. T. Colenbrander,
“The Dutch Element in American History,” in _Annual Report of the
American Historical Association_, 1909, pp. 191-203. Also, in the same
report, Ruth Putnam, “The Dutch Element in the United States,” pp.
203-19.
Although there were other English in Leyden, and, therefore, the size of
Robinson's congregation is difficult to determine accurately, it seems
to have numbered about two hundred at the time that its members were
considering their third emigration, and had decided to leave
Holland.[202] The reasons for this decision, as given by Bradford, were
the difficulty, for many, of making a living, and the unlikelihood of
attracting others; the possibility that they would themselves disperse
in time; the temptations which beset their children; and their desire to
spread the gospel in the new world.[203] To these, Winslow, who had
joined the group about 1617, added their wish to remain Englishmen; the
inability to give their children as good an education as they themselves
had received; and the somewhat ambiguous reason, “how little good we did
or were like to do to the Dutch in reforming the sabbath.”[204] Their
motives were, therefore, partly patriotic, partly economic, and partly
religious, the same which, in shifting proportions and embodied in a
very varied assortment of personalities, we find as mainsprings of
colonization from the beginning. The one constant factor is the
economic. No matter what other motives may have induced any one, from
John Cabot to the last arrival at Ellis Island, to turn his face
westward, added to them has ever been the hope of bettering his economic
condition. America has always offered comparative material prosperity to
the most idealistic as well as to the most sordid. When this factor
ceases to operate, as in time, perhaps a short time, it must, American
history will enter upon a new phase.
Footnote 202:
Usher, _Pilgrims_, pp. 293-304; Dexter, _England and Holland_, pp. 601
_ff._
Footnote 203:
Bradford, _Plymouth_, pp. 22-24.
Footnote 204:
Winslow, in Young, _Chronicles of the Pilgrim Fathers_ (Boston, 1844),
p. 381.
The little group of Englishmen in Leyden, who thus desired to emigrate,
were without means for any such undertaking. Whatever their motives
might be, it was evident that no colony could be planted, in which they
were concerned, unless monied men, from the same or other motives, could
be induced to risk capital in what, so far, had constantly been proved a
very unprofitable business. English merchants and capitalists had
already spent vast sums in the attempt to turn America to account, with
but little success. The English-American balance-sheet showed a colossal
amount spent in exploration and attempted development on the one page,
and but a handful of people in Virginia, a feeble beginning in Bermuda,
and the Newfoundland fishing fleet, on the other.
At first, the Pilgrims did not seem to realize how inadequate their
resources were for such a project. Apparently, the question which they
discussed most was where they should go, rather than how they should get
there. Some of the more substantial and important members advocated
Guiana, as they might there grow rich with little labor—which was a very
human ambition.[205] Fear of tropical diseases and the Spaniard
negatived this otherwise alluring plan. Thought of possible persecution
vetoed the next proposition also, which was to settle somewhere near the
colony already established in Virginia. The final decision was to live
under the government of that company, but as a distinct body by
themselves, after a grant of religious freedom should have been procured
from the King. It is rather odd, in view of the persecution which they
thought they had undergone, and that which they constantly seemed to
fear, that they should have been so confident that the King would
consent in writing to an act so far in advance of English thought. The
fact that they had escaped any rigorous attack in England, and that
their illegal acts on leaving had been condoned by the authorities, may
have added to their hope of being so tenderly treated, which was
unreasonably held out to them by “some great persons of good rancke and
qualitie.”[206]
Footnote 205:
Bradford, _Plymouth_, p. 27.
Footnote 206:
_Ibid._, pp. 28 _f._
In the fall of 1617, John Carver and Robert Cushman were dispatched to
London to confer with Sir Edwin Sandys about the matter. Sandys was a
brother of Sir Samuel Sandys, at that time lessee of the Scrooby Manor,
in which Brewster had lived, and was favorably disposed toward the
Leyden people. He was also a member of the East India, Bermuda, and
Virginia companies, the last of which he was virtually managing at the
time of the emissaries' arrival, owing to the illness of that Company's
treasurer.[207] The “Seven Articles of the Church at Leyden,” which the
Pilgrims had carefully worded in the somewhat naïve expectation that
they might satisfy the authorities without committing themselves, were
privately submitted to some of the members of the Virginia Council, and
approved; so that Sandys wrote hopefully of the prospects to Robinson
and Brewster.[208] The upshot of the matter, however, was what might
have been expected, or was perhaps even more favorable than should
reasonably have been hoped for under the circumstances. The King would
not grant them toleration under his “broad seale, according to their
desires,” which would naturally have got him into serious difficulties
politically; but, apparently, he did agree to “connive at them, and not
molest them, provided they carried themselves peaceably.”[209] They
wisely decided that, if this were not enough, nothing would be, for, if
the King meant to wrong them “though they had a seale as broad as the
house floor, it would not serve the turne, for ther would be means enow
found to recall or revers it.”[210] With this and, perhaps, the vain
regret that they had not let sleeping dogs lie, they had to be content.
Footnote 207:
Brown, _Genesis_, pp. 991-94.
Footnote 208:
Correspondence in Bradford, _Plymouth_, pp. 31-38. The articles are
reprinted by E. D. Neill, _History of the Virginia Company of London_
(Albany, 1869), pp. 123 _f._; Arber, _Pilgrim Fathers_, pp. 280 _f._;
and elsewhere.
Footnote 209:
Bradford, _Plymouth_, pp. 29 _ff._
Footnote 210:
_Ibid._, p. 30.
The next step was to secure a patent, and find “adventurers,”—as men
were still called who invested in such enterprises,—who would supply the
necessary money. Owing to the dissensions in the Virginia Company, which
now became acute, the negotiations were delayed; but on April 19, 1619,
that company elected Sandys treasurer; and a patent, taken out in the
name of John Wincob, “comended to the Company by the Earle of Lincolne,”
received its seal June 9.[211] This was never made use of, and
apparently the one they intended to utilize was that previously granted
to John Pierce, on February 2, antedating a later one to the same
person.[212]
Footnote 211:
_Records of the Virginia Company of London_ (Washington, 1906), vol.
I, pp 221, 228. Its date was not known when Palfrey wrote. Bradford
gives few dates, and the exact sequence of events is much a matter of
inference. The Wincob patent has not been preserved, and its terms are
unknown.
Footnote 212:
_Records of the Virginia Company_, vol. I, p. 303. On Feb. 16, it was
stated at a meeting of the Company that Pierce's colonists did not
intend to sail for two or three months. _Ibid._, p. 311. This early
patent is connected with the Pilgrims by inference only, which,
however, seems reasonable.
During the following months, their efforts to raise money became known
both in Holland and in England. The Dutch, now become the most important
colonizing power, tried to induce them to settle either in Zealand or on
the Hudson River; and they also received offers from an English
merchant, Thomas Weston, who ran over from London on the scent of
business. He finally prevailed upon them to make an agreement with
himself and his associates. His own motives, as amply proved by events,
were wholly mercenary, as were those of most of the other outsiders who
financed the enterprise. The planting of the first permanent colony in
New England was due to the desire for gain on the part of these ordinary
business men, who risked a large sum, and made heavy losses, as well as
to the higher motives of some of the actual emigrants, whose character,
sense, and patience rescued the enterprise from disaster. The infant
colony was the child of two parents, and the share of each in its
creation must be recognized, even if one were vulgar and sordid, and
subsequently disinherited its offspring.
The agreement, which became the subject of bitter controversy, created a
joint stock, divided into shares of £10 each. Every person, over sixteen
years of age, who went as an emigrant received one share free, and a
second if he fitted himself out to that amount, or paid for his
transportation. On the one hand, the results of the entire labor of the
colonists were to go to this joint fund, and, on the other, all their
food, clothing, and other necessities were to be provided for them out
of the stock. At the end of seven years, the entire fund, with its
accumulations, including houses, lands, and cash on hand, was to be
divided, pro rata, among all the shareholders, the expectation being
that the profits would accrue mainly from fishing and the Indian trade.
The emigrants had anticipated that two days a week would be allowed them
for their own profit, and that, at the end of the seven-year period,
they would retain individual possession of their houses and improved
lands. Indeed, it was only after they were so far committed to the
scheme that many of them could not well turn back, that they found this
was not to be the case.[213] The merchants, however, can hardly be
blamed for refusing to allow so large a vent for possible profits to
slip through. It was the general custom at the time for any one going to
the colonies, who could not pay his way, to become an indentured servant
for seven years in exchange for his transportation.
Footnote 213:
The text of agreement and objections is in Bradford, _Plymouth_, pp.
45 _ff._
The suggestion of the emigrants that one third of their working time,
and the permanent improvements, as well as the land on which they lived,
should accrue to themselves, and in no part to those who were providing
the means, must have seemed as grasping to the Adventurers as their
attitude, in turn, seems to have been considered by the Pilgrims. The
exact amount put into the venture by the capitalists, during their
connection with it, cannot now be determined accurately; but according
to Captain John Smith, there were about seventy of them, and the joint
stock invested up to 1624 was about £7,000.[214] The greater part must
have been subscribed by the Adventurers, not by the emigrants; so that,
making all due allowances for the share contributed by the latter, and
for returns made subsequently by their efforts in America, the final
loss on the part of the capitalists was very heavy. Their judgment as to
the risk their money was running was thus unpleasantly justified. They
were not subscribing to foreign missions, but employing their capital in
a purely business venture, and the terms, as business was conducted at
that time, cannot be considered as at all harsh. Cushman, in London, who
was acting as agent for the Leyden people, fearing the failure of the
entire enterprise if the merchants' terms were not accepted, exceeded
his authority, and agreed to them, to the great resentment of his
principals, who refused to sign the revised contract.
Footnote 214:
Smith, _Works_, vol. II, p. 783.
Meanwhile, a small ship, the Speedwell, which it was intended to take to
Virginia and keep there, had been bought in Holland, and a larger one,
the Mayflower, chartered in London to carry the major part of the
colony.[215] The two vessels were to meet at Southampton, and make the
passage together. It had been decided that, if a majority of the
congregation voted to remain in Leyden, Robinson should stay with them,
Brewster becoming the spiritual leader of those who should go. As this
proved to be the case, the members of the little party which at last
sailed from Delft Haven there took their final leave of their beloved
pastor.[216] Their debt to him had been great. His gentle spirit, humble
seeking of ever more light, and broad tolerance of mind, shone almost
alone in that period of intolerant dogmatism and persecuting zeal, alike
of Churchman and Puritan. “We ought,” he wrote, “to be firmly persuaded
in our hearts of the truth, and goodness of the religion, which we
embrace in all things; yet as knowing ourselves to be men, whose
property it is to err and to be deceived in many things; and accordingly
both to converse with men in that modesty of mind, as always to desire
to learn something better, or further, by them, if it may be.”[217] He
recognized that “men are for the most part minded for, or against
toleration of diversity of religion, according to the conformity which
they themselves hold, or hold not, with the country, or kingdom, where
they live. Protestants living in the countries of Papists commonly plead
for toleration of religion: so do Papists that live where Protestants
bear sway: though few of either, _specially of the clergy_, as they are
called, would have the other tolerated, where the world goes on their
side.”[218] In his farewell address to his flock shortly before their
leaving, he dwelt particularly upon the need of their being open-minded,
for “he was very confident that the Lord had more truth and light yet to
break forth out of his holy word,” and so his followers should “follow
him no further than he followed Christ.”[219] It is unlikely that such
doctrines were wholly grasped by all his humble followers, but the
influence of his life and teaching were felt long after in the little
church of Plymouth; and the spirit which, in general, animated that
colony must have been derived in large measure from the rare
spirituality of its first pastor in the Old World.
Footnote 215:
The captain was Christopher Jones, and not the Captain Thomas Jones of
unsavory memory. J. R. Hutchinson, “The Mayflower, her Identity and
Tonnage,” _New England Historical and Genealogical Register_, vol.
LXX, pp. 337-42. Also Usher, _Pilgrims_, p. 72. The ship is thought to
have been in the wine trade for several years; and as a wine ship was
known among sailors as a “sweet” ship, this may have had something to
do with the remarkable health of the Pilgrims on the voyage. For
disease on shipboard during that period, _cf._ Oppenheim,
_Administration of the Royal Navy_, vol. I, p. 136. Drake on his
famous voyage lost 600 out of a crew of 2,300.
Footnote 216:
Bradford, _Plymouth_, pp. 42, 60.
Footnote 217:
John Robinson, _Works_ (Boston, 1851), vol. I, p. 39.
Footnote 218:
Robinson, _Works_, vol. I, p. 40. The italics are mine. _Cf._ Buckle,
_History of Civilization_, vol. I, p. 337: “In every Christian country
where it [toleration] has been adopted, it has been forced upon the
clergy by the authority of the secular classes.”
Footnote 219:
Winslow, in Young, _Chronicles_, p. 397. Dr. H. M. Dexter has
vigorously attacked the idea of Robinson's having been broad-minded in
the modern sense, and thinks his words refer only to church discipline
and not to belief. _Congregationalism in the last 300 Years_, pp. 400
_ff._ From a study of Robinson's writings, I cannot agree with him.
_Cf._ Davis (_John Robinson_, pp. 241-65), who also disagrees with
Dexter; and the very just estimate by H. H. Henson, _Studies in
Religion in the 17th Century_ (London, 1903), pp. 234 _ff._; and W. W.
Fenn, “John Robinson's Farewell Address,” _Harvard Theological
Review_, July, 1920, pp. 236 _ff._
In the latter part of July the Speedwell reached Southampton, where the
Mayflower had already arrived, and whither Weston had also gone for a
final conference. On finding it impossible to make the Pilgrims accept
the changes in the agreement, he left them, telling them “they must then
looke to stand on their own leggs,” and even refused to pay £100, which
was necessary to adjust matters in Southampton before their sailing.
Provisions were sold to settle the debt, and both ships cleared for
America early in August. Owing to the leakiness of the small Speedwell,
it was necessary to put back to Dartmouth, where repairs were made.
After a second start, the Speedwell still giving trouble, both vessels
put into Plymouth, where it was decided to leave some of the company
behind, and proceed in the Mayflower alone.[220] One hundred and two
passengers crowded into the little vessel, the company being made up of
thirty-five of the Leyden congregation and the remainder from
London.[221] Cushman stayed behind; but, on the other hand, an
invaluable accession was made in the person of Captain Myles Standish.
This little “Captain Shrimp,” as Morton of Merry Mount nicknamed him,
although not a Puritan, remained a staunch friend to the colonists, and
with his little “army” of a dozen or less, stood as a shield between
them and their enemies, white and red. He was short in stature and in
temper. “A little chimney is soon fired,” Hubbard wrote of him. But he
could also be as gentle as he was valiant; and the first service he
rendered the infant colony was not in fighting the Indians, but in
tenderly nursing his new friends through the sickness of the first
winter.
Footnote 220:
Bradford, _Plymouth_, pp. 68 _ff._
Footnote 221:
The list is in Bradford, _Plymouth_, pp. 447-55; _cf._ also Dexter,
_England and Holland_, p. 650.
Finally, their “troubles being blowne over, and now all being compacte
togeather in one shipe, they put to sea againe with a prosperous winde,”
heavily laden with passengers, a vast amount of ghostly furniture, and
the first consignment of the New England conscience. After falling in
with Cape Cod, on the 19th of November, they ran among dangerous shoals
in their effort to pass southward to reach Hudson's river, and so
resolved to put back, casting anchor two days later in the harbor of
Provincetown.[222] Much speculation has been indulged in as to their
reasons for not going farther; but the obvious ones would seem as good
as any, and there is no cause to suspect treachery on the part of
Captain Jones of the Mayflower, the Dutch, or others.[223]
Footnote 222:
Bradford, _Plymouth_, p. 77.
Footnote 223:
First suggested by Nathaniel Morton in his _Memorial_, 1669 (ed.
Boston, 1855), p. 22. The statement is now generally discredited,
though frequently repeated. Dr. Ames, _The Mayflower and her Log_, pp.
100 _ff._, attempted to revive it by identifying Christopher Jones
with the now discarded Thomas.
As has been noted, only about one third of the company were of the
Leyden people. The other sixty-seven were evidently a very mixed lot,
comprising undesirable characters, as well as some excellent ones. As it
was now decided to settle in the nearest suitable spot, they knew that
they would be outside the jurisdiction of the Virginia Company, and,
therefore, also outside the bounds of their own patent. Some of the
London element, taking advantage of that fact, boasted openly that they
did not intend to be ruled by anyone, but “would use their owne
libertie.”[224] It was evident to the more substantial members that, if
order were to be maintained on shore, some responsible government would
have to be created, backed by sufficient show of public opinion and
force to keep the unruly in subjection. Before anyone was permitted to
land, therefore, the famous Mayflower Compact was drawn up, by which the
signers agreed to combine themselves into a “civill body politick” for
their order and preservation, and by virtue of it to enact necessary
laws and to elect officers.[225] This short document, the body of which
is but seven lines, was not intended to be a new departure in state
constitutions, but was a perfectly simple extension of the ordinary form
of church covenant, with which they were familiar, to cover the crisis
in their civil affairs which they now faced. As events developed,
however, it came about that the Compact remained the only basis on which
the independent civil government in Plymouth rested, as the colonists
were never able to get a charter conferring rights of jurisdiction. It
was the first example of that “plantation covenant” which was to form
the basis of the river towns of Connecticut, of New Haven, and of so
many other town and colony governments in that land of covenants,
ecclesiastical and civil.[226] From the exigencies of the case, rather
than from any preconceived philosophical notions, the first settlers
thus established a pure democracy, which was subsequently modified. At
first, however, the entire male population met in a body which
constituted a General Court, and was the source of all local political
power and judicial decisions.
Footnote 224:
Bradford, _Plymouth_, pp. 89 _ff._
Footnote 225:
The compact is in Bradford, _Plymouth_, pp. 89 _f._; the list of
signers in Morton, _Memorial_, p. 26.
Footnote 226:
_Cf._ Osgood, _American Colonies_, vol. I, p. 291.
[Illustration:
Page from Bradford's History, on which is the Mayflower Compact
Original in State House, Boston
]
The document was signed by forty-one men, of whom only seventeen were
from Leyden. It may here be noted that the usual historical method of
approach to the settlement of Plymouth, which is by way of Scrooby and
Holland, is, to a certain extent, misleading. The capital, which made
the enterprise possible, was practically all subscribed in London. Of
the first emigrants but a third belonged to Robinson's congregation,
and, in the entire Pilgrim movement to America, only a dozen or so
persons, at most, can be even remotely traced to the neighborhood of
Scrooby.[227] It is true that the Scrooby leaven, in the persons of
Brewster and Bradford, and the influence of Robinson, leavened the whole
Plymothean mass; but, if we had the documents, which we have not, it
would be instructive to hear the story from the standpoint of the
Londoners, both capitalists and colonists.
Footnote 227:
Dexter, _England and Holland_, p. 650.
The first few weeks were occupied in searching for a site for
settlement; and it was only on the third expedition in their little
shallop that the exploring party finally landed at Plymouth, on
December 21.[228] Having found the harbor fit for shipping, and the
site possible for a settlement, they decided to search no farther. “It
was the best they could find, and the season, and their presente
necessitie, made them glad to accepte of it,” wrote Bradford, somewhat
unenthusiastically.[229]
Footnote 228:
The celebration of “Forefathers Day,” for many years, on Dec. 22, was
due to a mistake in transposing Old-Style dates into New. In any case,
there was, of course, no such “landing” of the whole company as
appears in popular tradition.
Footnote 229:
Bradford, _Plymouth_, p. 88.
Five days later, the Mayflower herself arrived from Provincetown, and
the people began the erection of the first common house for themselves
and their goods—a log hut about twenty feet square, with a thatched
roof. Soon, however, they abandoned building in common, and “agreed that
every man should build his own house, thinking that by that course men
would make more haste,” so promptly did human nature and winter's cold
assert themselves over theory. The season, though stormy, happily proved
unusually mild. Fortunately, also, the great sickness which had recently
decimated the Indians, had killed off almost the entire native
population about Plymouth and Massachusetts bays, and completely broken
the spirit of the remainder, though this was as yet unknown to the
settlers, who lived in constant fear of attack.[230] They occupied but a
clearing on the edge of the vast and unknown wilderness. Mysterious and
unexplored, it stretched interminably before them, while the midwinter
North Atlantic tossed as endlessly behind them. In the woods, Indian
yells had been heard, and an occasional savage had been seen skulking
behind cover. John Goodman, going for a walk one evening with his dog,
suddenly found the small beast taking refuge between his legs, chased by
two wolves. He threw a stick at them, whereupon “they sat both on their
tails grinning at him a good while.”
Footnote 230:
The nature of the disease is unknown. It was evidently neither yellow
fever nor smallpox, as some have thought, and white men were not
affected, even when they slept in the same huts with the Indians.
_Cf._ C. F. Adams, _Three Episodes in Massachusetts History_ (Boston,
1893), vol. I, pp. 1-4.
Soon, owing to exposure, many of the settlers fell ill; and so quickly
did the disease spread, and so fatal were its effects, that by the end
of March forty-four, or nearly one half of the little company, were
dead. Sometimes two or three died in a day, and but six or seven were
well enough to nurse the living and bury the corpses. Their kindness and
courage under these trials were beyond all praise. Before the arrival of
the first supply ship, in the following autumn, six more had died,
including the governor, Carver, so that only one half the company
remained. But the little colony was not to be crushed.
Bradford was elected in Carver's place, and in March, in spite of the
terrors which encompassed them, in spite of the graves of the dead,
which far outnumbered the homes of the living, Winslow could yet note
that “the birds sang in the woods most pleasantly.”
Suddenly, toward the end of that month, at the very moment when they
were debating questions of defense, an Indian walked boldly into the
settlement, and bade them welcome in English. The savage, Samoset by
name, proceeded to give them much useful information about the natives,
and from him, apparently, the settlers first learned of the great
mortaliy among them. After spending the night, he was dismissed with
gifts, promising to bring others of the natives with him on his return.
This he did a few days later, the savages bringing with them some tools
which they had stolen a while before, and which they now restored. A
week later, Samoset and another Indian, named Squanto, who was the only
survivor of the group which had dwelt where the Pilgrims had settled,
came to announce the arrival of the great sachem himself, Massasoit.
With him, the settlers made a treaty of peace and friendship, which was
honorably maintained on both sides for over half a century, the Indian
proving himself a loyal friend to the English until his death in
1662.[231]
Footnote 231:
The treaty is in Bradford, _Plymouth_, pp. 94 _ff._ The minor
incidents in connection with Plymouth in this chapter, when references
are not given, are all taken from Bradford, or Bradford and Winslow,
the latter as given in Young's _Chronicles_.
The sachem's visit was returned in July, Winslow and Hopkins making the
journey of forty miles, with the ever-useful Squanto as guide. During
the summer, the colonists were joined also by another Indian, Hobomack,
who made his home with them, and continued faithful during his life. In
spite of some minor troubles, due to the childish jealousy and desire to
appear important on the part of the two savages, the debt that the
settlers owed to them cannot be overestimated. They not only served as
interpreters and intermediaries with the other Indians, but taught the
colonists how to plant and manure the native corn and where to catch
fish, acted as guides about the country, and made themselves generally
invaluable. These services were not regarded wholly with favor by some
of the Indians who were opposed to the whites, and the settlers had to
teach the sachem Corbitant a sharp lesson, to make them leave their two
Indian friends alone.[232]
Footnote 232:
Bradford, _Plymouth_, pp. 102 _ff._; Young, _Chronicles_, pp. 202-14,
218-23.
The Mayflower, having been detained by the sickness of her crew, as well
as by that prevailing on shore, until the middle of April, had then
sailed for home, none of the planters abandoning the enterprise to sail
with her. Needless to say, there had been no opportunity to gather cargo
to send to the merchants in England before her sailing. With the summer,
however, health had returned, and there had been a moderate degree of
comfort, as well as abundance of food, at Plymouth; so that in
September, under the guidance of Squanto, the Pilgrims undertook their
first trading voyage, sailing to Massachusetts Bay. Their plan had been
both to explore the country and to make peace with the Indians of that
district, as well as to “procure their truck.” Although gone only four
days, the little party of thirteen, under command of Standish, were
eminently successful in all three objects, making the first beginning,
on any large scale, of that trade which was to prove their financial
salvation. In fact the Bible and the beaver were the two mainstays of
the young colony. The former saved its morale, and the latter paid its
bills; and the rodent's share was a large one. The original foundations
of New York, New England, and Canada all rest on the Indian trade, in
which the item of beaver-skins was by far the most important and
lucrative.
Having thus got together a good store of pelts and some clapboards, they
were able to despatch the Fortune, which had arrived in November, back
to England within a fortnight after her arrival, with their first
consignment, worth £500, all of which was lost to them by the capture of
the ship by the French.[233] A long letter from Weston, brought from
England by Cushman, complained bitterly and unreasonably of their having
returned no cargo in the Mayflower, and also brought word that a new
patent had been obtained for them from the Council of New England, in
the name of John Pierce and his associates.[234]
Footnote 233:
Bradford, _Plymouth_, pp. 105 _ff._; Young, _Chronicles_, pp. 234
_ff._
Footnote 234:
_Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll._, Series IV, vol. II, pp. 158 _ff._
There had also arrived on the Fortune thirty-five persons to remain in
the colony, evidently sent by the merchants, and with practically no
supplies of any kind. They were made welcome by the Pilgrims, who were
ever hospitable, not alone to those who differed from them in doctrine,
but even to their avowed enemies, so long as either needed their help.
Bradford noted that they were glad of this addition to their strength,
though he “wished that many of them had been of better condition, and
all of them better furnished with provisions.” The colonists, who had
but recently been congratulating themselves on having ample food for the
coming winter, due to their own efforts, had now to be put on very short
commons; and it was not until the gathering of the crops in the autumn
of the following year that they again had a sufficient supply.
The addition to their numbers, however, must have increased their
feeling of security in the Indian troubles which soon threatened them.
The powerful Narragansetts, who were hostile both to the Pilgrims and to
their native allies, and who had suffered but slightly from the plague,
sent them a challenge in the form of a bundle of arrows tied in a
snake-skin. Squanto having interpreted the message, they returned the
skin stuffed with powder and shot, with word to the natives that “if
they had rather have warr then peace, they might begin when they would.”
Nevertheless, in spite of their “high words and lofty looks,” Winslow
wrote, they were not a little anxious, and took all the precautions
possible, including the building of a palisade about the village.
Nothing came of the episode, however, except the anxiety of the
settlers, which was increased the following summer by the receipt of a
letter telling them of the great and sudden massacre at Jamestown.[235]
So greatly were they then worried that they faced another winter of
short rations more willingly than they did the savages, and took much
valuable time from the tilling of their crops for the building of a
fort.
Footnote 235:
The letter was sent to them by a stranger, John Hudlston, whose name
deserves to be remembered for his thoughtful kindness. It is in
Bradford, _Plymouth_, pp. 124 _f._
Until the great immigration into Massachusetts Bay, in 1630, Plymouth
continued to be the largest single settlement in New England; but, from
1622 onward, there were scattered beginnings at other points along the
coast, many of which proved permanent. Gorges endeavored to put new life
into colonization, and in that year published his “Briefe Narration” of
the efforts he had made heretofore.[236] In less than two months after
the granting of Pierce's patent for the benefit of the Pilgrims, another
grant was made to Captain John Mason of all the lands lying between the
Naumkeag and Merrimac rivers, and extending from their heads to the
seacoast, thus including the shore from Salem to Newburyport.[237] In
August, a third grant was passed, to Mason and Gorges jointly, of the
coast from the Merrimac eastward to the Kennebec, extending sixty miles
inland, and including all islands within fifteen miles of the shore, to
be called the Province of Maine.[238] Other grants were also made in the
same year,[239] and a small settlement may have been begun at
Nantasket.[240]
Footnote 236:
Reprinted in _Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll._, Series II, vol. IX, pp. 1-25.
Footnote 237:
Printed in C. W. Tuttle, _Capt. John Mason_ (Prince Soc., Boston,
1887), pp. 170-77. _Cf._ _Ibid._, pp. 45-52.
Footnote 238:
_Ibid._, pp. 177-83.
Footnote 239:
For list of grants _cf._ S. F. Haven, “History of Grants under the
Great Council for New England,” in _Lowell Lectures_, Boston, 1869;
also the two volumes of the _Farnham Papers_; Maine Historical
Society, Portland, 1901-2.
Footnote 240:
S. G. Drake, _The History and Antiquities of Boston_; Boston, 1856.
_Cf._ Winsor, _Memorial History_, vol. I, p. 79.
Of more immediate interest to the people of Plymouth than paper
principalities or small fishing stations, of which there were probably
many along the coast, used annually at certain seasons, was the attempt
made by their own financial backer, Thomas Weston, to establish a
private and rival trading colony almost at their very door. Profits not
having come in as rapidly as he had anticipated, he had sold out his
holdings in the enterprise to his associates, and now intended to plant
and trade for his own account, getting all he could from the Pilgrims.
Although he attempted to misrepresent the new relation which he now bore
toward them, it was not long before they learned the truth from their
friends at home. Toward the end of May, a small shallop arrived with
seven of his men, whom he had detached from a fishing vessel of his at
Damaris Cove, near Monhegan, and sent to Plymouth to be cared for. Soon
followed word of his having broken with the company, and of his having
procured a separate patent for himself. By the vessel which brought this
news arrived also sixty more of his colonists, who were set ashore at
Plymouth, by the Charity, which then proceeded to Virginia. Well and
sick, the whole sixty-seven remained a burden upon the Pilgrims, until,
the Charity having returned, they sailed in her to Wessagusset, now
Weymouth, where they seated themselves. An unruly crew, with no
leadership, and utterly unfitted for colonizing, they were soon short of
provisions. A joint voyage to the southward, made by some of them and of
the Pilgrims, resulted in securing but little corn, the expedition
having had to be abandoned on account of the death of Squanto, who, as
usual, was serving as guide.
As the winter passed, the Wessagusset men slowly starved. Their attitude
toward the natives was the height of folly, and the somewhat hostile
Massachusetts Indians, perceiving their plight, formed a plot to
exterminate both settlements at once. This was revealed to the Pilgrims
by Massasoit, who, at this most opportune moment, had been cured by them
of what his followers had thought a deadly sickness. The crisis was a
serious one, and the Pilgrims acted promptly. Feigning a trading voyage,
Standish and eight men went to Wessagusset, inveigled the ringleaders
into one of the houses, and there slew them. Pecksuot, who had
personally insulted Standish, was killed with his own knife, which the
captain snatched from around his neck; and, in all, six savages were
slain on the expedition. Three of Weston's men, who, in spite of
warnings, had gone to stay with the Indians, were murdered by them in
retaliation. Most of the remainder, refusing the Pilgrims' offer to care
for them at Plymouth, sailed for Monhegan, in the hope of finding
passage to England.[241] Weston himself, arriving soon after, found his
colony deserted, and himself ruined. On reaching Plymouth, after having
been robbed and stripped by the Indians, he unblushingly borrowed
capital from the compassionate Pilgrims in order to set himself up as a
trader.
Footnote 241:
Young, _Chronicles_, pp. 314-45.
Another of the capitalists also gave the Pilgrims trouble by trying the
same plan of planting a colony of his own. On the 30th of April, 1622,
Pierce, in whose name their patent stood, obtained another, which, on
the same day, he exchanged for a deed-pole, by which he became the owner
of the lands on which Plymouth was settled. Having thus cut the ground
from under the Pilgrims' feet, he proceeded to send out a hundred and
nine colonists for his own account. The ship was forced to turn back,
however; and finally, the Pilgrims, on making complaint to the Council
for New England, had their original rights confirmed, upon payment to
Pierce of £500.[242]
Footnote 242:
Bradford, _Plymouth_, pp. 138-41; Records of Council for New England,
_Proceedings American Antiquarian Society_, April, 1866, pp. 91-93.
These troubles, which occupied their minds in the early summer of 1623,
were soon followed by the arrival of Captain West, who had been
commissioned Admiral of New England, and sent to collect license fees
from the fishermen along the coast. These proved to be “stuborne
fellows,” however, and the only result of West's brief attempt at
authority was to bring up anew in Parliament the fight for free fishing
and the opposition to the monopoly created by the New England Council.
Robert Gorges also came over as Governor of New England, accompanied by
the Rev. William Morell, who was to superintend ecclesiastical affairs
in the interest of the Church of England; but, although Gorges spent the
winter at Weston's abandoned site, nothing more came of this
high-sounding scheme to govern the wilderness.
Among the passengers in the Anne, which arrived at Plymouth in the same
summer of 1623, were some few who were not to belong to the general
body, or be subject to the rules of joint trading, but came on “their
perticuler,” as Bradford describes it. An agreement was soon made with
them, debarring them from the Indian trade until the period of joint
trading should end, and otherwise defining their status in the
community. Such an anomalous group within the body politic naturally
tended to trouble, nor were leaders lacking who endeavored to fan the
sparks into a blaze. Among the “perticulers” was a rough-and-ready
trader named John Oldham, a man of considerable practical ability, but
heady, self-willed, and of an ungovernable temper. In the following
spring appeared also a canting hypocritical clergyman, John Lyford by
name, who seems to have been a sort of lascivious Uriah Heep. Pretending
great humility, he was honorably received by the Pilgrims, as they
thought befitting a clergyman, and was given a seat in the Governor's
Council. Soon, however, he and Oldham joined forces, and gathered
together the various malcontents of the colony, without any very clear
idea, apparently, beyond that of fishing in troubled waters, in the hope
of making some profitable catch. The waters were troubled enough at this
juncture, for the factions among the Adventurers at home were then at
their height. To the party there adverse to the Pilgrim interest, Oldham
and Lyford dispatched letters, containing matter distinctly inimical to
the established order. These were read and copied by Bradford, in the
cabin of the ship which was to bear them, unknown to the senders. The
latter, indeed, had some suspicions, and “were somewhat blanke at it,
but after some weeks, when they heard nothing, they were as brisk as
ever,” like boys relieved from the fear of having been caught in
mischief. In fact, they became so brisk that Oldham, when called upon to
do his turn of guard duty by Standish, refused and raised a tumult.
The grotesque effect of their next stroke was naturally lost upon people
who, with all their excellent qualities, were, unhappily for themselves,
very obviously lacking in the saving grace of humor. The curiously
assorted couple decided to set up a church of their own. The thought of
Oldham, “a mad Jack in his mood,” and the sniveling clergyman, whose
innumerable light loves had brought so many heavy sorrows, reforming the
Pilgrims' church is one of the bits which lighten the somewhat sombre
recital of those frontier days. A General Court was convened, and the
two were brought to trial. Both of them were sentenced to banishment,
Oldham to go at once, and Lyford to have six months' grace, although the
former seems to have been rather the more respectable, as he was much
the more masculine, of the two. Oldham went, but, having nursed his
wrath, he suddenly returned in March, for the sole purpose, apparently,
of exploding it upon the yet unreformed Pilgrims, who, however, merely
“committed him till he was tamer.” Lyford, meanwhile, had utilized his
reprieve to write home again, criticizing the government of the colony,
and making some just complaints, on the part of the large minority, of
the required conformity of worship. The sentence of banishment was then
enforced, and both rebels betook themselves temporarily to
Nantasket.[243]
Footnote 243:
Bradford, _Plymouth_, pp. 183 _ff._
In the same summer in which the Pilgrims had acquired Lyford and Oldham,
an addition of about sixty other persons had also been made to the
colony, some of them “very usefull” to the settlers, and some of them
“so bad, as they were faine to be at charge to send them home againe the
next year.”[244] Other settlements, too, continued to be planted along
the coast. Robert Gorges, who had received a grant of some three hundred
square miles on the northeast side of Massachusetts Bay, but who had
settled his men at Wessagusset, left some of them there when he returned
to England, and the permanent occupation of that section was begun.[245]
In 1623, David Thompson established himself at the mouth of the
Piscataqua; while Edward and William Hilton may soon after have settled
some miles up the river, thus founding the modern towns of Portsmouth
and Dover. Christopher Levett, who was one of Robert Gorges's Council,
made a short-lived plantation at York, and a permanent colony was
effected on Monhegan.[246] For the greater convenience of their fishing
operations, which were never successful, the Pilgrims had secured a
grant of land at Cape Ann, and erected a fishing stage there, although
the grant, which was derived from Lord Sheffield, was of questionable
validity.[247] A fishing company was formed of Dorchester men in
England, who made a little settlement on the Cape, holding it of the
Plymouth people.[248] Although the undertaking was unprofitable, and
always a source of trouble to the Pilgrims, it is of interest owing to
the connection with it of some of those who were later influential in
England in organizing the Massachusetts colony.
Footnote 244:
_Ibid._, p. 142.
Footnote 245:
Haven, _Lowell Lectures_, p. 154; Adams, _Three Episodes_, vol. I, p.
144; Hazard, _Historical Collections_, vol. I, p. 391. In regard to
the settlement by Thompson, we have documentary evidence in _New
Hampshire State Papers_, vol. XXV, pp. 715, 734; but there is no such
proof of the traditionary settlement by Hilton, until 1628, although
it is accepted by the earlier historians. _Cf._ W. H. Fry, _New
Hampshire as a Royal Province_ (New York, 1908), pp. 18, 32. Also, J.
G. Jenness, _Notes on the First Planting of New Hampshire_
(Portsmouth, 1878), pp. 4, 14 _ff._
Footnote 246:
Burrage, _Colonial Maine_, pp. 169-75; J. P. Baxter, _Christopher
Levett of York_, Gorges Society, Portland, 1893; Bradford, _Plymouth_,
p. 154.
Footnote 247:
J. W. Thornton, _The Landing at Cape Anne_ (Boston, 1854), pp. 31
_ff._
Footnote 248:
Smith, _Works_, vol. II, p. 783; Bradford, _Plymouth_, pp. 168, _f._;
John White, _The Planter's Plea_ (Force Tracts, Washington, 1838),
vol. II, pp. 38 _ff._; Wm. Hubbard, _History of New England_
(Cambridge, 1815), pp. 102 _ff._
About 1625, individuals also seem to have established themselves at
Shawmut, at Noddle's Island, and on the Mystic River; and, a year later,
Thompson removed from the Piscataqua, and settled on the island which
has since borne his name in Boston Harbor.[249] Farther eastward, John
Brown, by 1625, had founded a settlement at New Harbor, on the eastern
shore of Pemaquid; and in the next five years, eighty-four families had
located there, on St. Georges River, and at Sheepscot.[250] A station
had also been established at Old Orchard Bay, while the importance of
Monhegan as a centre for Indian trading is proved by large transactions
there as early as 1626.[251]
Footnote 249:
J. Winsor, _Memorial History_, vol. I, pp. 78, 83; C. F. Adams, “Old
Planters about Boston Harbor,” _Mass. Hist. Soc. Proceedings_, Series
I, vol. XVI, p. 206.
Footnote 250:
Burrage, _Colonial Maine_, pp. 78, 83.
Footnote 251:
_Ibid._, pp. 183, 199.
Thus, the inhabitants of Plymouth, after the middle of the first decade
of their settlement, were evidently outnumbered by the other permanent
settlers, who were likewise founding New England. Some of these we know
to have been of the established Church, as were Gorges and Mason, the
proprietors of a large section of the territory; while of the majority,
we know only that they were traders and planters, who were quite
evidently in New England to make their fortunes, and for no other
reason.
In 1625, there sailed into Boston Bay and New England history, a certain
“man of pretie parts,” by name Captain Wollaston, a convivial sport
named Thomas Morton, and “a great many servants, with provisions and
other implements for to begine a plantation.” Among the implements was
obviously a prodigious supply of strong waters. They “pitched themselves
in a place” within the present town of Quincy, calling their settlement
Mt. Wollaston, after their leader. He, however, like some others before
and since, did not find life in New England to “answer his
expectations,” and carried off a number of his servants to Virginia,
where he sold them at a good figure, and took his exit from the stage of
history.
Thomas Morton, of Cliffords Inn, Gent., whose literary portrait has come
down to us in the somewhat unreliable form of an appreciation by
himself, supplemented by sundry exceedingly unflattering sketches by his
enemies, now proceeded to take control of the situation in a manner
entirely satisfactory to himself, the rest of the stranded Quincy band,
and, it was darkly rumored, the less virtuous of the Indian squaws. He
suggested to the remaining servants that, instead of allowing themselves
to be transported to Virginia, they should stay with him as copartners,
he having had a share in the enterprise; and that, together, they should
thrust out Wollaston's lieutenant. To this they willingly agreed, and
matters proceeded merrily. Morton, who, whatever his failings, was a
thorough sportsman and passionately fond of outdoor life, became a great
favorite with the Indians, and trade was brisk. It must have been, if
Bradford's report that they sometimes drank ten pounds' worth of liquor
in a morning is to be credited, as the liquor certainly was not. “They
also set up a May-pole,” wrote the scandalized Pilgrim, “drinking and
dancing aboute it many days togeather, inviting the Indian women, for
their consorts, dancing and frisking together like so many fairies or
furies” and revived “the beasley practicses of the madd
Bacchanalians.”[252]
Footnote 252:
Bradford, _Plymouth_, pp. 237 _ff._; Morton, _New English Canaan_
(Force Tracts), vol. II, 89 _ff._
The joy of life had, indeed, made one other feeble effort to acclimatize
itself in the frosty New England air on Christmas Day, in Plymouth, four
years before. Most of the then recent arrivals, constituting, perhaps, a
third of the entire community, had had the hardihood to wish to refrain
from work on that day, and to celebrate it “in the streete at play,
openly” with such ungodliness as pitching a bar and playing ball.[253]
That, however, with a certain show of grim humor, had been successfully
repressed, as was the May-pole of Merry Mount, on the arrival of
Endicott in Massachusetts.
Footnote 253:
The colony numbered about 85. The newcomers were 35, and Bradford says
(_Plymouth_, p. 112), “the most of this new-company” were guilty of
the attempt.
When the echoes of Morton's mad songs died for the last time among the
pines of Quincy, rigid conformity to the Puritanical code of manners and
morals had won its second victory. Repression and conformity, the two
key-notes of Puritan New England, were to continue to mould the life of
her people throughout the long “glacial age” of her early history. They
did not, indeed, produce universal morality, but they produced the
outward semblance of it, and a vast deal of hypocrisy. If they must
revel, Bradford told the ball-players, let them do it out of sight,
“since which time nothing hath been attempted that way, at least
openly.” Twenty years later, as he meditated upon the extraordinary
amount of crime of unnamable sorts, which, as he wrote, had developed in
New England “as in no place more, or so much, that I have known or heard
of,” the possibility did, indeed, occur to him that, among other
reasons, it might be “as it is with waters when their streams are
stopped or damed up, when they gett passage they flow with more
violence.”[254]
Footnote 254:
Bradford, _Plymouth_, p. 385.
In spite of the good which Puritanism did as a protest against the
prevailing immorality, it must be admitted also, that, in taking from
the laboring classes and others so much of their opportunity for
recreation of all sorts, it undoubtedly fostered greatly the grosser
forms of vice, and helped to multiply the very sins it most abhorred.
Those who lacked the taste or temperament to find their relief from the
deadly monotony of long hours of toil in theological exposition, and who
were debarred from their old-time sports, turned to drunkenness and
sexual immorality, both of which were frequent in Puritan New England.
The attempt to erect the moral opinion of a minority into a legal code
binding upon all was not, by any means, confined to that section alone
at the beginning of the seventeenth century. It was, and is, a
characteristic of Puritanism wherever found. At the very time that
Bradford was condemning the Christmas sports of Plymouth, the
authorities in Bermuda, for example, were passing laws requiring that
there should be haled to court all “Sabath breakers” who were such “by
absenting themselves from church, or leaving during service,” or “by
using any bodily recreation by gaminge, sportinge, or by doing any
servile work as travelling, fyshinge, cuttinge of wood, digginge of
potatoes, carryinge of burdens, beatinge of corne,” together with a long
list of other misdemeanors. New England Sabbatarian legislation never
went further. Even that petty spying upon one another, to detect sins to
be reported to the church, which must have been such an unpleasant form
of keeping one's brother in New England, was by no means indigenous
there. The “churchwardens and sydesmen,” continued the Bermudian law,
“shall dailie observe the carriage and lives of the people, and shall
forthwith informe the ministers of all such scandalous crymes as shall
be comitted by any of them.”[255] Such quotations from the statute books
of the other colonies could be multiplied almost indefinitely.
Footnote 255:
J. H. Lefroy, _Memorials of the Discovery and Early Settlements of the
Bermudas_ (London, 1877-79), vol. II, p. 320.
The Puritan seed was sown on many soils, and if it took root and
flourished so abundantly in New England as there to crowd out the
flowers of the field to a greater extent than elsewhere, it was due in
part to the nature of the actual soil which the Puritan himself had to
till. We have already noted how the geographical features of the region
fostered the classes of fishermen, small traders, subsistence farmers,
and townsmen; how it prevented the growth of a large land-owning or
slave-owning population; how, in a word, it produced a society which was
largely democratic and almost wholly middle-class. Moreover, in the
discussion of Puritanism, we noticed how that movement was strongest,
struck its roots deepest, and assumed its most uncompromising form, in
the very class which thus became almost synonymous with the New England
population.
To return to Merry Mount, however, it must be conceded that there were
more serious things wrong there than merely heavy drinking and loose
living. Morton, led by cupidity, had made the fatal error of selling
fire-arms to the Indians. Needless to say, the profits, in beaver, of
such a trade, were enormous; but it threatened the life of every white
man on the coast, and residents of the scattered settlements asked
Plymouth to join with them in suppressing the deadly mischief. Morton,
after a brief struggle, of which he gives an amusing account, was taken
into custody, and shipped to England with a complaint to the Council for
New England.
The cost of the expedition, which had been led by Standish, amounted to
a little over £12, borne by eight settlements, of which the inhabitants
of Plymouth outnumbered all the other seven together.[256] That colony,
however, contributed but one sixth of the money spent, for which several
reasons might be suggested. During the years of its existence, it had
received practically no help from the capitalists at home, subsequent to
the first fitting out, and the really great achievement of its leaders
had consisted in maintaining, for the first time, the existence of a
plantation in a wilderness by its own unaided efforts. The three main
points of interest in that connection were the abandonment of the
common-stock theory, the growth of trade, and the buying out of the
interest of the capitalists, which latter transaction foreshadowed the
transfer to America of the Massachusetts charter.
Footnote 256:
Bradford, _Plymouth_, pp. 240 _ff._; _cf._ also Bradford, _Letter
Book_, in _Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll._, Series I, vol. III, p. 63.
The theory of a common-stock as a necessity for the profitable operation
of colonies was the accepted one of the day, in spite of repeated
failures due to human nature. That failure had been as evident in
Plymouth as elsewhere. Young unmarried men objected to having the fruits
of their toil go to support other men's wives and children. Married men
disliked having their wives sew, cook, and wash for the others.
Hard-working men thought it unfair that they should support the more
idle or incapable. The older men, or those of the better class, declined
to work for the younger or meaner. The pinch of hunger, in 1623, finally
decided the colonists to set aside their agreement, in the interests of
the capitalists as well as their own, in the one particular of raising
food. The immediate result was a greatly increased production, so that
many had a surplus and trading began among themselves, with corn as
currency. The following year, one acre of land was confirmed to each
individual in severalty.[257]
Footnote 257:
Bradford, _Plymouth_, pp. 134, 167. The list of lots, with their
owners, is in _Plymouth Records_, vol. XII, pp. 1-6.
There was, however, no surplus of food for export, and lumber and beaver
were the only available commodities.[258] But the site that had been
chosen for the colony was in a poor location for the Indian trade, which
required access to the interior along some waterway; and the Pilgrims
were therefore forced to resort to coasting voyages for their main
supply of skins.
Footnote 258:
In 1626, it was decreed that no corn, beans or peas could be exported
without license from the governor and council. _Plymouth Records_,
vol. XII, p. 8.
Not only had the London merchants received almost no interest upon their
investment, but it began to seem evident to them that the principal
itself was lost. Quarrels among themselves over the character of the
colonists sent out, and mutual recriminations, completed the break-down
of the company. Finally, in December, 1624, some of them wrote to
Bradford and others that they had decided to abandon the venture and
lose what they had already expended rather than risk any more,
suggesting that the Pilgrims send over what they could to pay special
debts, amounting to £1400. Those writing the letter also sent out, on
their own account, some cattle and various useful commodities, to be
sold to the settlers at seventy per cent advance, to cover the profits
and risks. The latter were indeed great, insurance alone, at that time,
consuming about twenty-five per cent for the round trip;[259] and the
following year, Standish, who had been sent to London for the purpose,
could not borrow money, for the purchase of trading goods, at less than
fifty per cent. Goods and capital they must have, however, and the
profits, when made, were correspondingly great. While Standish was in
London, Winslow made a trip to the Kennebec, in a small vessel, laden
only with a little of that surplus corn which they had raised, and there
secured seven hundred pounds weight of beaver, besides other furs. In
1626, hearing that the trading station at Monhegan was going out of
business, Bradford and Winslow, accompanied by Thompson from Piscataqua,
went to attend the sale, at which the Pilgrims bought goods to the value
of £400. An additional stock, amounting to £100, was bought from the
wreck of a French ship in the ill-fated Damaris Cove, the purchases
being paid for with the beaver which they had accumulated the winter
before. The following spring, Allerton arrived from London with £200
more, which he had succeeded in raising at thirty per cent; so that
their capital was now ample.[260] The greatest advance which they made
in their trade with the Indians, however, was due to the friendly Dutch,
who sold them some wampum, and taught them its great value in dealing
with the savages. This appearance of the ubiquitous Dutch, helping a
struggling colony to achieve economic strength by valuable advice or yet
more valuable trading in needed goods, was a frequent one in the early
seventeenth century, and in all quarters of the globe. The Pilgrims at
Plymouth, the French at St. Christophers, and innumerable other little
settlements on secluded bays or on lonely islands, owed their prosperity
or preservation to the timely arrival of a “Dutch trading captain.” It
would be interesting to trace how many little bands of people, abandoned
by their own companies or governments, were thus nursed into strength by
the Holland traders, who sought them out, and knew their needs.[261]
Footnote 259:
Gerard Malynes writing in 1622, quotes rates of insurance to various
ports. He does not give New England, but quotes San Domingo as 12 per
cent each way, and the East Indies at 15 per cent. _Cf._ his
_Consuetude vel Lex Mercatoria_ (London, 1636), p. 108.
Footnote 260:
Bradford, _Plymouth_, pp. 198, 204, 209, 222, 234.
Footnote 261:
_Cf._ S. L. Mims, _Colbert's West Indian Policy_ (Yale Univ. Press,
1912), pp. 20 _f._
Assured now of sufficient food, and with the Indian trade well
established, the settlers felt that their position in these respects was
secure. There were, however, two matters which gave them cause for
anxiety. One was the interference by outsiders with their trade on the
Kennebec, and the other was their ill-defined situation in regard to the
Adventurers in London. In spite of the abandonment of the enterprise by
the latter, their claims would continue in existence unless legally
extinguished; and it was essential for the settlers to come to some
agreement with them, in order that their property and goods should not
be liable to seizure in the future. Negotiations, begun by Allerton in
1626, were completed by him on a second trip the year after, when he not
only secured a patent for a definite tract on the Kennebec from the
Council for New England, but consummated the deal with the Adventurers
by which all claims of every description were to be canceled by the
payment to them of £1800, in annual instalments of £200 each. The
payment of this sum, together with £600 of additional debt, was
undertaken by Bradford, Brewster, Standish, and Winslow, with four
others in the colony and four friends in England, in exchange for a
monopoly of the colony's trade for six years.[262]
Footnote 262:
Bradford, _Plymouth_, pp. 212, 221, 226.
By their purchase of all the Adventurers' interest, the Pilgrims had
thus practically eliminated the proprietary elements that had existed in
their organization, and the settlement became what, for all practical
purposes, it had been from the start—a corporate colony.[263] A new
patent for Plymouth, granted them in 1630, in the name of Bradford and
certain associates, assigned them a definite territory, which the
earlier ones had not done, and a confirmation of the Kennebec holdings
also straightened out boundary matters there. Their title-deeds,
therefore, were now secure. Their powers of government, however,
continued to rest solely upon the compact signed in the cabin of the
Mayflower ten years before; for, in spite of their efforts, they were
never able to obtain a royal charter with privileges similar to those
enjoyed by Massachusetts. But in four of the most important elements in
that larger migration,—the bringing of families to form permanent homes,
the peculiar form of church government, the individual ownership of
freely acquired land, and the severing of business and legal relations
with any company in England,—the Massachusetts leaders but followed the
ways laid out by the simple founders of Plymouth.
Footnote 263:
_Cf._ Osgood, _American Colonies_, vol. I, p. 290.
CHAPTER VI
NEW ENGLAND AND THE GREAT MIGRATION
During the years that the Pilgrims had thus been struggling to found a
tiny commonwealth on an inhospitable bit of the long American
coast-line, events had been moving rapidly on the more crowded stage of
the Old World. In France, the power of the Huguenots had been hopelessly
crushed by the fall of Rochelle in 1628; while in England, affairs were
evidently approaching a crisis, due to the incompetence of the
government of Charles, with its disgraceful military failures abroad,
and its illegal financial exactions at home. No one was safe from the
ruin of his fortune or the loss of his freedom. The nobility and gentry,
subject to the imposition of forced loans, faced imprisonment if they
refused to pay; and those below the rank of gentleman were the unwilling
hosts of a horde of ruffians, the unpaid and frequently criminal
soldiery returned from unsuccessful foreign ventures, and billeted upon
them by the government. The laws, against Catholics were largely
suspended to please the Queen, who was of that faith, and the prospects
were daily growing darker for the Puritan and patriot elements, both
within and without the Church. Religious toleration as an avowed
governmental policy was not, as yet, seriously considered by any
considerable body of men outside of Holland, the notable example of
which country had failed to influence England, where the control of the
church was evidently passing into the hands of Laud and his party. The
time had thus come when the King must face a united opposition of the
soundest men in the country—of those who feared alike for their
property, their liberty, and their religion.
The formation of the Puritan party, drawing into its fold men animated
by any or all of these motives, in varying proportions, coincided with
the beginning of the great increase in emigration to Massachusetts,
which was to carry twenty thousand persons to the shores of New England
between 1630 and 1640. But if attention is concentrated too exclusively
upon the history of the continental colonies in North America, and, more
particularly, of those in New England, the impression is apt to be
gained that this swarming out of the English to plant in new lands was
largely confined to Massachusetts and its neighbors, and to the decade
named. The conclusion drawn from these false premises has naturally been
that Puritanism, in the New England sense, was the only successful
colonizing force. We do not wish to minimize the value of any deeply
felt religious emotion in firmly planting a group of people in a new
home. Such value was justly recognized by one of the wisest practical
colonizers of the last century,[264] who was not himself of a religious
temperament, but who, to secure the firm establishment of his colony,
would “have transplanted the Grand Lama of Tibet with all his prayer
wheels, and did actually nibble at the Chief Rabbi.”[265] The Puritan
colonies, nevertheless, not only were far from being the only permanent
ones, but themselves were not always equally successful; and it is well
to point out that many elements, besides peculiarity of religious
belief, entered into the success of the New England colonies, as
contrasted with the conspicuous failure of the Puritan efforts in the
Caribbean.
Footnote 264:
Gibbon Wakefield. _Cf._ pp. 156-163 of his _View of the Art of
Colonization_; Oxford, ed. 1914.
Footnote 265:
Dr. Garnett, cited by H. E. Egerton, _Origin and Growth of Greater
Britain_ (Oxford, 1903), p. 107.
At the beginning of the increased emigration to Massachusetts,
colonizing, indeed, had ceased to be a new and untried business. To say
nothing of the numerous large and small French, Dutch, and Spanish
settlements firmly established in the New World, and the English already
planted on the mainland, the latter nation had successfully colonized
the islands of Bermuda in 1612, St. Kitts in 1623, Barbadoes and St.
Croix in 1625, and Nevis and Barbuda three years later. By the time John
Winthrop led his band to the shores of Massachusetts Bay, besides the
five hundred Dutch in New Amsterdam, ten thousand Englishmen were
present, for six months of each year, in Newfoundland, engaged in the
fisheries there; nine hundred had settled permanently in Maine and New
Hampshire; three hundred within the present limits of Massachusetts;
three thousand in Virginia; between two and three thousand in Bermuda;
and sixteen hundred in Barbadoes; while the numbers in the other
colonies are unknown.[266] The figures are striking also for the year
1640, or slightly later, at which date the tide is too often considered
as having flowed almost wholly toward the Puritan colonies of New
England for the preceding ten years. The number in Massachusetts at that
time had risen to fourteen thousand, in Connecticut to two thousand, and
in Rhode Island to three hundred. Maine and New Hampshire however,
contained about fifteen hundred, Maryland the same number, Virginia
nearly eight thousand, Nevis about four thousand, St. Kitts twelve to
thirteen thousand, and Barbadoes eighteen thousand six hundred. There
are no contemporary figures for Barbuda, St. Croix, Antigua, Montserrat,
and other settlements.[267] At the end, therefore, of what has often
been considered a period of distinctly Puritan emigration, we find that
approximately only sixteen thousand Englishmen had taken their way to
the Puritan colonies, as against forty-six thousand to the others; which
latter figure, moreover, is undoubtedly too low, owing to the lack of
statistics just noted. Nor does the above statement take into account
the thousands of Englishmen who emigrated to Ireland during the same
period, and whose motives were probably similar to those animating the
emigrants to the New World, however different their destinations may
have been. There had, indeed, been a “great migration,” resulting in an
English population in America and the West Indies, by 1640 or
thereabout, of over sixty-five thousand persons; but it is somewhat
misleading to apply the term solely to the stream of emigrants bound for
the Puritan colonies, who were outnumbered three to one by those who
went to settlements where religion did not partake of the “New England
way.” Although young John Winthrop might write of his brother that it
“would be the ruine of his soule to live among such company” as formed
the colony of Barbadoes in 1629,[268] nevertheless, the population of
that island had risen to nearly nineteen thousand in another decade,
whereas that of Massachusetts had reached only fourteen thousand.
Footnote 266:
_Cal. State Pap., Col., 1574-1660_, p. 26; _A Century of Population
Growth_ (Census Bureau, 1909), p. 9; C. P. Lucas, _Historical
Geography of the British Colonies_ (Oxford, 1905), vol. II, pp. 13,
179.
Footnote 267:
_Century of Population_, p. 9; F. B. Dexter, “Estimates of Population
in American Colonies,” _American Antiquarian Society Proceedings_,
1889, vol. V, pp. 25, 32; Lucas, _Historical Geography_, pp. 142 _f._
181. In 1645, there were 18,300 effective men in Barbadoes, which
would indicate a much larger population. The population is given as
30,000 whites in 1650. F. W. Pitman, _Development of the British West
Indies_ (Yale Univ. Press, 1917), p. 370.
Footnote 268:
Winthrop Papers, _Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll._, Series V, vol. VIII, p. 22.
[Illustration: Streams of Emigration from England, 1620 to 1642]
If, in addition, we recall the fact that, approximately, not more than
one in five of the adult males who went even to Massachusetts was
sufficiently in sympathy with the religious ideas there prevalent to
become a church member, though disfranchised for not doing so, we find
that in the “great migration” the Puritan element, in the sense of New
England church-membership, amounted to only about four thousand persons
out of about sixty-five thousand. In the wider sense, indeed,
Puritanism, in its effect on legal codes and social usages, is found
present, in greater or less degree, in almost all the colonies, island
and mainland, but the influence of the form that it took in New England
was to be wholly disproportionate upon the nation which evolved from the
scattered continental settlements.
If, however, we shift from our usual point of view and, instead of
studying the English emigration of the time in the light of the leaders
who reached New England, consider the great body of those who left the
shores of England, we shall have to account for those fourteen emigrants
out of every fifteen, who, although willing to leave their homes and all
they had held dear, yet shunned active participation in the Bible
Commonwealths. It is evident that other causes, besides the quarrels in
the Church and the tyranny of Laud, must have been operative on a large
scale, to explain the full extent of the movement. It seems probable
that the principal cause that induced such an extraordinary number of
people, from the ranks of the lesser gentry and those below them, to
make so complete a break in their lives as was implied by leaving all
they had ever known for the uncertainties of far-off lands, was
economic. They came for the simple reason that they wanted to better
their condition. They wanted to be rid of the growing and incalculable
exactions of government. They wanted to own land; and it was this last
motive, perhaps, which mainly had attracted those twelve thousand
persons out of sixteen thousand who swelled the population of
Massachusetts in 1640, but were not church members; for the Puritan
colonies were the only ones in which land could be owned in fee simple,
without quit-rent or lord, and in which it was freely given to
settlers.[269]
Footnote 269:
B. W. Bond, Jr., _The Quit-rent System in the American Colonies_ (Yale
Univ. Press, 1919), pp. 15, 35.
The local sources in England of the great migration, and the relations
of that movement to local economic conditions, have not received
adequate treatment as yet, and the subject is somewhat obscure; but
apparently it was the eastern and southeastern counties that furnished
the main supply of immigrants for the New World. It was in these
counties that the artisans from Flanders had sought refuge, when driven
abroad by Alva, as well as the Huguenots from France. In these counties,
also, the enclosures, which were of such far-reaching economic
influence, had taken place earlier than elsewhere, while wages there
showed a lower ratio to subsistence than in the north.[270] The special
area in which the inhabitants were most disposed to seek new homes was
that around the low country draining into the Wash; and throughout the
early seventeenth century economic and agrarian agitation was notably
constant in that particular region,[271] the period of heaviest
emigration—that between 1630 and 1640—marking, perhaps, its years of
greatest economic readjustment and strain. The rise in rents and
land-values had, indeed, been enormous during the preceding
half-century.[272] But this agricultural prosperity had been so closely
bound up with the great expansion of the cloth industry, that in this
section it may be said to have been wholly dependent upon it.[273] From
1625 to 1630, however, the business of the clothiers suffered a very
severe decline, which continued for some years, and the effects of which
were very marked in the agricultural industries as well.[274] In
Norwich, for example, the Mayor and Aldermen complained that, owing to
the dearth of food, and to the great increase of unemployment due to bad
trade conditions, the amount necessary for poor relief had to be
doubled.[275] Moreover, as is always the case in periods of great
economic alteration, the change had not affected all classes in the
community alike. The yeomanry, who were less influenced by the rapidly
rising scale of living, and so could save a much larger proportion of
their increased gains from the high agricultural prices, were improving
their position at the expense of the gentry.[276] Enterprising traders,
in the cloth and other industries, who had acquired fortunes, but who
naturally were not of the old families, were pushing in and buying
country estates, and, like all _nouveaux riches_, were asserting their
new and unaccustomed position by raising the scale of living.[277] Many
of the gentry, on the other hand, unable to adjust themselves to the new
economic conditions or to take advantage of them, and yet unwilling to
give up their comparative position in the county, found themselves
“overtaken,” as a contemporary writer says, “with too well meaning and
good nature,” and so were “inforced sometimes to suffer a revolution” in
their domestic affairs.[278] About the years of the emigration, however,
there seem to have been financial difficulties and economic unrest among
all the classes, due to the immediate crisis in the cloth trade, as well
as to the more general conditions of the time.
Footnote 270:
Cunningham, _English Industry_, vol. II, pp. 36, 38; W. A. S. Hewins,
_English Trade and Finance, chiefly in the 17th Century_ (London,
1892), p. 108; R. H. Tawney, _The Agrarian Problem, in the 16th
Century_ (New York, 1912), p. 405; W. J. Ashley, _Introduction to
English Economic History and Theory_ (London, 1893), vol. II, pp.
286-88; G. Slater, “The Inclosure of Common Fields considered
geographically,” _Geographical Journal_ (London), vol. XXIX, pp. 39
_f._; M. Aurosseau, “The Arrangement of Rural Populations,”
_Geographical Review_, vol. X, pp. 321 _f._
Footnote 271:
Newton, _Puritan Colonisation_, p. 79.
Footnote 272:
_Victoria History of County of Lincoln_ (London, 1906), vol. II, p.
334.
Footnote 273:
_Victoria History of County of Suffolk_ (London, 1911), vols. I, pp.
661, 676, and II, p. 268.
Footnote 274:
_Ibid._, vol. II, p. 266.
Footnote 275:
_Cal. State Pap., Domestic, 1629-31_, p. 419. _Cf._ also, _Ibid._, pp.
8, 403, 419. A few years earlier, Sir Wm. Pelham, writing to his
brother-in-law, said: “Our country was never in that wante that now
itt is, and more of munnie than Corne, for theare are many thousands
in thease parts whoo have soulde all thay have even to theyr bedd
straw, and cann not get worke to earne any munny. Dogg's flesh is a
dainty dish,” etc. _Lincolnshire Notes and Queries_, vol. I, p. 16.
Footnote 276:
“Our yeomanry, whose continuall under living, saving, and the
immunities from the costly charge of these unfaithfull times, do make
them so as to grow with the wealth of this world, that whilst many of
the better sort, as having past their uttermost period, do suffer an
utter declination, these onely doe arise, and doe lay such strong,
sure, and deep foundations that from thence in time are derived many
noble and worthy families.” Robt. Reyce, _Suffolk Breviary_, 1618 (ed.
London, 1902), p. 58.
Footnote 277:
_History of Suffolk_, vol. I, p. 673.
Footnote 278:
Reyce, _Breviary_, p. 60.
The district in which these economic changes were at work was also the
one in which Puritanism had taken its strongest hold, and the leaders
both of the Puritan movement at home and of colonization abroad “formed
a veritable clan, intimately bound together by ties of blood, marriage,
and neighborhood, acting together in all that concerned colonization on
the one hand and autocratic rule on the other.”[279] We have already
seen, in an earlier chapter, how the trading companies had brought into
working contact the great nobles, city merchants, and country gentlemen,
and accustomed them to act together as, perhaps, nothing else could have
done, thus paving the way for the formation of the Puritan party.
Footnote 279:
C. M. Andrews, Introduction to Newton, _Puritan Colonisation_, p.
viii. Robert Reyce, writing of the gentry, in 1618, says: “So againe
what with the enterlacing of houses in marriage (a practise at this
day much used for the strengthening of families therby) such is the
religious unity wherewith in all good actions they doe concur, that
whatsoever offendeth one displeaseth all, and whosever satisfieth one
contenteth all.” _Breviary_, p. 60.
In addition to this foundation, the leaders were united by ties based
upon social and blood-relationship, many of which were of great
importance in the affairs of both Old and New England. Among many such,
we may note that John Endicott was a parishioner of the Reverend John
White, who was interested in the Cape Ann fishing company with John
Humphrey. Humphrey, in turn, was a brother-in-law of the Earl of
Lincoln, one of the most earnest of the Puritan peers, and son-in-law of
Viscount Say and Sele. Lincoln's other brothers-in-law were Isaac
Johnson and John Gorges, the latter a son of Sir Ferdinando. Lincoln's
steward, Thomas Dudley, was a parishioner of John Cotton. The Earl of
Holland was a brother of the Earl of Warwick, who was the leader of the
Puritans. The latter's interests in Parliament were attended to by Lord
Brooke, while his man of business was Sir Nathaniel Rich. The Riches and
the Barringtons were neighbors and close friends. Lady Joan Barrington,
who was a correspondent of many of the New England emigrants, was an
aunt of John Hampden and Oliver Cromwell, and Roger Williams at one time
applied for the hand of her niece. Many of these were deeply interested
in the attempt to found a Puritan colony in the Caribbean, as were also
Gregory Gawsell, John Gurdon, and Sir Edward Moundeford, who were all
three country neighbors and intimate friends of John Winthrop and his
family circle.[280]
Footnote 280:
Newton, _Puritan Colonisation_, pp. 61 _ff._; E. J. Carpenter, _Roger
Williams_ (New York, 1909), pp. 16-21.
At the time that our story has now reached, there were two projects for
Puritan settlement in which members of this clan were particularly
interested, that of the island of Old Providence in the Caribbean Sea,
and that of the remnants of the Cape Ann fishing attempt, which was
mentioned in the preceding chapter. The latter somewhat ill-judged
effort, in 1623, to combine as a single enterprise an agricultural
colony on land and a fishing business at sea, had been abandoned two
years later, with a loss of £3000.[281] Most of the men had been
withdrawn, but Roger Conant, with a few others, decided to remain in
America, transferring their homes to the location of what was in a few
years to be known as Salem. Thinking that something might still be saved
from the wreck, a few of the Adventurers in England plucked up courage,
and having interested fresh capitalists, including Thomas Dudley,
secured the services of John Endicott as local governor, and, in 1628,
were granted a patent from the Council for New England.[282] The Puritan
character of the new undertaking would be sufficiently evidenced by the
names of White and his parishioner Endicott, Humphrey, and Dudley, did
we not know also that the Earl of Warwick, who seven years before had
secured the patent for the Pilgrims, now acted in obtaining that for the
New England Company.[283] Sir Ferdinando Gorges, to whom Warwick
applied, gave his consent, provided that the new patent should not be
prejudicial to the interests of his son Robert, and distinctly stated
that the new colony was to found a place of refuge for Puritans.[284]
The grant, which extended from three miles north of the River Merrimac
to three miles south of the Charles, conflicted with that bestowed on
Gorges and Mason in 1622, as well as with that of Robert Gorges of
similar date. As the same limits were confirmed in the royal charter to
the Company of Massachusetts Bay in 1629, the seeds of future discord
were sown in these conflicting titles.[285]
Footnote 281:
J. White, _The Planter's Plea_ (Force Tracts), p. 39.
Footnote 282:
White, _Planter's Plea_, p. 43; T. Dudley, “Letter to the Countess of
Lincoln,” in Young's _Chronicles of the first Planters of
Massachusetts_ (Boston, 1846), p. 310; _cf._ Osgood, American
Colonies, vol. I, p. 130.
Footnote 283:
There was no uniform designation until the issue of the charter of
1629, the company being variously styled “the New England Company,”
“the Company of Adventurers for New England in America,” etc.
Thornton, _Landing at Cape Anne_, p. 57 _n._
Footnote 284:
Gorges, _Briefe Narration_, p. 80 (written many years later).
Footnote 285:
Haven, _Lowell Lectures_, pp. 153 _f._
Endicott was at once dispatched, with a few followers, to take
possession, and to prepare the way for a larger body to be sent in the
succeeding year. The little band, with which he arrived in September,
1628, together with the old settlers already on the spot, made up a
company of only fifty or sixty people, most of whom seem to have done
little but “rub out the winter's cold by the Fire-side,” “turning down
many a drop of the Bottell, and burning Tobacco with all the ease they
could,” while they discussed the progress they would make in the
summer.[286] There was, however, much sickness among them, which may
have accounted in part for their close hearth-keeping. From what we know
of Endicott's harsh manners and lack of wisdom in dealing with delicate
situations, it may be assumed that his superseding of Conant in the
office of local governor was not made more palatable by any grace in his
announcement of the fact; and, in any case, ill-feeling developed
between the old and new planters. This, however, was smoothed over by
Conant's own tact, and affairs were adjusted “so meum and tuum that
divide the world, should not disturb the peace of good Christians.”[287]
Morton, owing to his unsympathetic neighbors, the Pilgrims, was
temporarily in England, and so absent from his crew at Merry Mount; but
Endicott promptly visited that very un-Puritan and somewhat dangerous
settlement, and having hewn down the offending May-pole, “admonished
them to look ther should be better walking.”[288] It is possible that,
before winter set in, preparations may have been made for a second
settlement at Charlestown to forestall the claims of Oldham in that
locality.[289]
Footnote 286:
White, _Planter's Plea_, p. 43; E. Johnson, _Wonder-working Providence
of Sions Saviour in New-England_ (ed. New York, 1910), p. 45.
Footnote 287:
W. Hubbard, _History of New England_ (1815), p. 110.
Footnote 288:
Bradford, _Plymouth_, p. 238.
Footnote 289:
The Robert Gorges claim had been sold in two parts, one to Sir Wm.
Brereton and one to John Dorrell and John Oldham. J. G. Palfrey,
_History of New England_ (Boston, 1859), vol. I, p. 294; _cf._ T.
Prince, _Chronological History of New England_ (Arber reprint, London,
1897), p. 483; and Cradock's instructions in Young, _Chron. Mass._,
pp. 147 _ff._, 171.
Endicott's whole mission at this time, indeed, seems to have been merely
to prepare the way for others; and in the following year, six ships were
dispatched, carrying over four hundred people, with cattle and
additional supplies.[290] Four clergymen, including Skelton and
Higginson, were also sent, for the spiritual welfare of the colony, and
the conversion of the Indians, which latter object, at this stage of the
enterprise, was officially declared to be the main end of the
plantation.
Footnote 290:
Prince, _New England_, p. 489; Young, _Chron. Mass._, pp. 132, 216.
The number included 35 of the Leyden congregation bound for Plymouth.
Meanwhile, the number of those in England interested in the venture
continued to grow, and a royal charter, under the broad seal, was
granted March 4, 1629, in the names of Sir Henry Rosewell, Sir John
Younge, Thomas Southcott, John Humphrey, John Endicott, and their
associates, the total membership of the company being about one hundred
and ten.[291] The grant followed somewhat closely that received by the
Virginia Company in 1609, the patentees being joint proprietors of the
plantation, with rights of ownership and government similar to those
enjoyed by the earlier London Company. A General Court, to meet
quarterly, was provided for, and annually, at the Easter session, this
court was to elect a governor, deputy governor and a board of
assistants, consisting of eighteen members. By an important clause, six
of the latter, together with the governor or his deputy, constituted a
quorum, and were therefore required to be present at the sittings of the
court. The General Court, consisting of the members of the Company,
known as freemen, was also given the power to add to its number, and to
make such necessary laws and ordinances as should not be repugnant to
the laws of England. The first governor was Mathew Cradock, with Thomas
Goffe as deputy, the Assistants including Sir Richard Saltonstall, Isaac
Johnson, John Humphrey, John Endicott, Increase Nowell, Theophilus
Eaton, and John Browne. It was this charter of a proprietary company,
skillfully interpreted to fit the needs of the case, and constantly
violated as to its terms, which formed the basis of the commonwealth
government of Massachusetts for over half a century.
Footnote 291:
_Records of the Governor and Company of the Massachusetts Bay in New
England_ (ed. N. B. Shurtleff, Boston, 1853), vol. I, p. 5 (hereafter
cited as _Massachusetts Records_). The charter is given on pp. 1-20.
S. F. Haven, prefatory chapter to the Company's Records, in
_Archeologia Americana_, 1857, vol. III, pp. cxxxiv-cxxxvi.
The company, so organized, proceeded to arrange for a local government
in Massachusetts, confirming Endicott as governor, and associating with
him a council of thirteen. This was to include the three clergymen then
there, the two Brownes, and two of the old planters, if the latter group
should desire such representation. Efforts were made to conserve as
equitably as possible the rights of those former settlers, and other
instructions for the conduct of the company's affairs were forwarded to
Endicott a few weeks after the grant of the charter.[292] Writing home,
at the end of the first summer, Higginson stated that, on their arrival,
they had found “aboute a half score houses, and a fair house newly built
for the Governor,” and that, including the newcomers and old settlers,
about three hundred people were planted in the colony, of whom two
thirds were at Salem and the remainder at Charlestown.[293] “But that
which is our greatest comfort and means of defence above all others,” he
continued, “is that we have here the true religion and holy ordinances
of Almighty God taught amongst us. Thanks be to God, we have here plenty
of preaching, and diligent catechising, with strict and careful
exercise.”
Footnote 292:
Young, _Chron. Mass._, pp. 141-71.
Footnote 293:
F. Higginson, _New England's Plantation_; Young, _Chron. Mass._, pp.
258 _f._
[Illustration:
Original Share in Massachusetts Bay Company
Massachusetts Historical Society
]
As we noted in an earlier chapter, many writers have insisted greatly
upon the rigid distinction between the Pilgrims, as Separatists, and the
Puritans, as mere Nonconformists. Not only, however, were the members of
the several communities by no means agreed as to what constituted
Separatism and Nonconformity, but, in the American wilderness, such
distinctions rapidly ceased to have any but a disputatious value, with,
at intervals, political reverberations in England. The Pilgrims, at the
time of their emigration from Holland, may have been strict Separatists
or on the way to becoming mere non-Separatist Independent Puritans;[294]
and the leaders of the churches of Massachusetts for many years denied
any Separatism on their own part or that of the Pilgrims. John Cotton
wrote categorically, in 1647, that “for New England there is no such
church of the Separation at al that I know of.”[295] On the other hand,
many, of all shades of religious belief, refused to acknowledge this
view of the matter. They found it impossible to answer Roger Williams's
query as to “what is that which Mr. Cotton and so many hundreths fearing
God in New England walk in, but a way of separation?”[296] Indeed, in
view of the open and patent facts, the only possible answer was the
casuistical one of Cotton and the other leaders, that they had
separated, “not from the Churches in Old England, as no Churches, but
from some corruptions found in them.”[297] As these corruptions were
held to include the polity and ritual of the English Church, and as
members of the New England churches, though they might listen to its
preaching, were not allowed to be in communion with it, and as no Church
of England services were permitted on New England soil, the point as to
whether or not the New England Puritans were Separatists is a mere
matter of terms. It depends upon the question how far a minority of any
organization, social, political, or religious, can go in denying the
validity of its ideas, in refusing to conform to its practices, and in
not allowing them to be used, and still consider themselves as being in
the organization. Opinions will always differ, and it is as impossible
to decide to-day whether the Puritans became Separatists as it was for
themselves and their critics to decide at the time.
Footnote 294:
C. Burrage, _English Dissenters_, vol. I, p. 357.
Footnote 295:
_Master John Cotton's Answer to Master Roger Williams_ (_Narraganset
Club Publications_, Providence, 1867, vol. II, p. 203).
Footnote 296:
R. Williams, _Mr. Cotton's Letter examined and answered_ (_Narraganset
Club Publications_, vol. I, p. 109).
Footnote 297:
_Narraganset Club Publications_, vol. II, p. 234.
The question of terms is not especially important, but the question of
polity, as it was developed in the little church at Salem, is immensely
so, for it undoubtedly gave a very great impetus to the growth of
Congregationalism in Massachusetts, and, indeed, has been called “the
chief point of departure in the ecclesiastical history of New England,”
which was so inextricably interwoven with its political history. In no
other part of the country has a more distinct and persistent type of
thought and character been developed than in that section; and in this
regard we have already noted the important influences of the geographic
environment. But the impress of its institutional life was no less
effective upon the minds of its people. It was not Puritanism alone that
developed the type; for, we repeat, the Puritan strain may be traced in
the legislation and social life of many of the English settlements, and
the Puritanism of any individual to-day may derive quite as directly
from an ancestral Bermudian, Georgian, Jamaican Commonwealth man,
Carolinian Scotch Covenanter, or Pennsylvanian Ulsterite, as from a
settler in Salem or Plymouth. But wherever we find Congregationalism,
town government, and the village school, we may trace the triple
influence straight to New England.
It is impossible to say what may have been the precise ideas as to
church government held by the groups which emigrated with Endicott and
in the following year, but the evidence seems clear that, at least as
far as Endicott was concerned, they were identical with those of the
Pilgrims, or were unconsciously derived from them after arrival. Dr.
Fuller, who visited Salem during the sickness of the first winter, was
not only a physician but a deacon of the Plymouth church. With him
Endicott discussed the question of church polity, and, as a result,
wrote to Governor Bradford that “I am by him satisfied touching your
judgments of the outward forme of Gods worshipe. It is, as farr as I can
gather, no other than is warranted by the evidence of truth, and the
same which I have proffessed and maintained ever since the Lord in
mercie revealed him selfe unto me.”[298] A few weeks later, after the
arrival of Skelton and Higginson, the Salem church was organized, with
the former as pastor, and the latter as teacher, the members being
united by a church covenant, which became one of the essential features
of the New England church system.[299] In that system, every local
church was independent, choosing and ordaining its own pastor, teachers,
and ruling elders, and was composed of such Christians only as could
satisfy the other church members of their converted state.[300] “The
stones that were to be laid in Solomon's temple,” wrote Cotton, with
characteristic far-fetched use of Old Testament texts, “were squared and
made ready before they were laid in the building ... and, wherefore so,
if not to hold forth that no members were to be received into the Church
of Christ, but such as were rough-hewn, and squared, and fitted to lie
close and levell to Christ and to his members?”[301]
Footnote 298:
Bradford, _Plymouth_, p. 265; Burrage thinks the Pilgrim influence
slight, differing from most authorities. _English Dissenters_, vol. I,
pp. 360 _ff._ _Cf._ W. Walker, _History of Congregational Churches in
U. S._ (New York, 1894), pp. 101 _ff._
Footnote 299:
Bradford, _Plymouth_, pp. 265 _f._ The covenant of 1629 and the
enlarged one of 1636 are in W. Walker, _Creeds and Platforms of
Congregationalism_ (New York, 1893), pp. 116 _ff._ _Cf._ C. Burrage,
_The Church Covenant Idea_ (Philadelphia, 1904), pp. 88 _ff._
Footnote 300:
_Cf._ T. Lechford, “Plain dealing or Newes from New England”; _Mass.
Hist. Soc. Coll._, Series III, vol. III, pp. 63-75.
Footnote 301:
John Cotton, _The Way of the Churches of Christ in New England_
(London, 1645), p. 54.
Although the church government was democratic in form, and thus of
influence in fostering democratic beliefs as to government in general,
it must be remembered that at probably no period during the life of the
charter, did the number of church members include more than a very
distinct minority of the population. Lechford's statement, that three
quarters of the people were outside the pale of the church in 1640,
seems borne out by other testimony, and this proportion appears not to
have been greatly changed till near the end of the century.[302] The
influence of this democratic form of church organization, however, was
clearly foreseen by King James in his dictum, “No bishop, no king”; and
of even greater effect in its logical political consequence was the
employment of the covenant. In defending its use in the church, Cotton,
in the volume already quoted, was forced onto broader ground. “It is
evident,” he wrote, “by the light of nature, that all civill Relations
are founded in Covenant. For, to passe by naturall Relations between
Parents and Children, and violent Relations between Conquerors and
Captives; there is no other way given wherby a people (sui Juris) free
from naturall and compulsory engagements, can be united or combined
together into one visible body.”[303]
Footnote 302:
Lechford, _Plain Dealing_, p. 143; A. E. McKinley, _Suffrage Franchise
in the Thirteen English Colonies_ (University of Pennsylvania
Publications, 1905), p. 313.
Footnote 303:
Cotton, _The Way of the Churches_, p. 4.
It is difficult to overestimate the influence which, in time, these two
ideas, of a democratic church polity and a voluntary covenant as the
only basis for a civil government, would come to exert upon those
holding them; but for the moment, the result was the forcible expulsion
from the community of two members who did not hold them. John and Samuel
Browne, both men of good estate, the one a merchant and the other a
lawyer, and both original patentees of the Company, had left England for
Salem in the spring of 1629, with high recommendation to Endicott from
the Company at home, as men much trusted and respected.[304] When the
Salem church was organized, the two brothers, who were both on the
council, objected, accusing the ministers of having become Separatists,
which they denied. As the Brownes refused to give up the use of the
prayer-book, and held private services with their followers, Endicott,
either from personal feeling or from a real fear that the trouble would
disrupt the colony, took a strong stand, and shipped them back to
England.[305] There is no contemporary account of the details, and it is
therefore as unwise, perhaps, to condemn Endicott, as it is
unjustifiable to speak of the Brownes as “anarchical,” or, with an odd
lack of humor, as “Schismatical.”[306] Endicott was mildly censured by
the Company in England, who wrote that they conceived that “it is
possible some undigested councells have too sudainely bin put in
execution, wch may have ill construccion with the state heere;” while
the ministers were asked to clear themselves if innocent, or else to
look back upon their “miscarriage wth repentance.” In time the Brownes
seem to have been settled with satisfactorily on a cash basis.[307]
Footnote 304:
T. Hutchinson, _History of Massachusetts_ (Salem, 1795), vol. I, p.
19; Young, _Chron. Mass._, p. 168.
Footnote 305:
Hutchinson, _History_, vol. I, p. 19; Morton, _New England's
Memorial_, pp. 100 _f._
Footnote 306:
Young's epithets, in _Chron. Mass._, p. 160 _n._
Footnote 307:
_Massachusetts Records_, vol. I, pp. 409, 407, 52, 54, 61, 69.
While progress was thus being made in the establishment of the
Massachusetts Bay colony, another project for a Puritan settlement was
rapidly taking form. After the dissolution of the Virginia Company, the
quarrel between the Sandys and Warwick factions was continued in the
courts of the Somers Islands, or Bermuda Company, and its affairs were
going from bad to worse, largely owing to the frequent changes in the
person of the governor as the two factions succeeded each other in power
at home. In April, 1629, Sir Nathaniel Rich received a long letter from
Governor Bell, in regard to various matters, in the course of which he
described two islands lying in the Caribbean, in either of which he
thought one year would “be more profitable than seven years here,” and
placed the disposition of both islands in Warwick's hands.[308]
Footnote 308:
Newton, _Puritan Colonisation_, pp. 32 _f._
It was a momentous time. Hardly more than a few days before, Parliament
had been angrily dissolved by the King, not to meet again for eleven
years. Eliot, Selden, and seven other of the popular leaders had been
committed to the Tower. In every direction, Puritans of distinction, and
even such lesser men as John Humphrey and John Winthrop, were made to
feel the hostility of the court. The recent successful colonization of
St. Kitts and Barbadoes by the Earls of Carlisle and Marlborough, both
members of the court party, and hostile to the Warwicks and Riches,
combined with the flattering report of the new-found islands by Bell,
induced Warwick, whose affairs had not been going well, to make an
immediate counter-move. With Rich, Gawsell, and others, he provided
£2000, and dispatched two ships for the Caribbean under letters of
marque. They arrived at Providence about Christmas, the company
beginning to make ready for the larger body which was to arrive in the
spring, precisely as Endicott had done at Salem. “The aim and desire
above all things,” wrote the promoters of the enterprise, “is to plant
the true and sincere Religion and worship of God, which in the Christian
world is now very much opposed.” At first, the utmost secrecy was
maintained as to the real aims of Warwick and his associates; and it was
only in December of the following year, after the main body of the
colonists had already been planted, that letters-patent for the islands
were procured from the King.[309]
Footnote 309:
_Ibid._, pp. 48, 50, 53, 95, 86. This island had been confused, until
recently, with New Providence in the Bahamas.
There can be no doubt, however, that the matter was well known to
Winthrop and others of those who were contemplating emigration in the
summer of 1629. Not only was Gawsell a neighbor and friend of Winthrop,
but all steps taken by the Massachusetts group seem to have been talked
over with Warwick and Rich.[310] John Winthrop, now in his forty-third
year, who was living the life of a country squire at Groton, in Suffolk,
and was a small office-holder under government, had been anxiously
watching the course of affairs. Of a sensitive and deeply religious
nature, strongly attached to the Puritan cause, he could not but regard
the future with the greatest anxiety. “The Lord hath admonished,
threatened, corrected and astonished us,” he wrote to his wife in May,
1629, “yet we growe worse and worse, so as his spirit will not allwayes
strive with us, he must needs give waye to his fury at last.... We sawe
this, and humbled not ourselves, to turne from our evill wayes, but have
provoked him more than all the nations rounde about us: therefore he is
turninge the cuppe toward us also, and because we are the last, our
portion must be, to drinke the verye dreggs which remaine. My dear wife,
I am veryly persuaded, God will bringe some heavye Affliction upon this
lande, and that speedylye.”[311] In addition to his fear that all hope
of civil, as well as of even a moderate degree of religious, liberty was
rapidly fading, Winthrop was also much troubled by the prospects for his
personal social and financial position. A few months earlier, he had
written to his son Henry, at that time a settler in Barbadoes, that he
then owed more than he was able to pay without selling his land; and
throughout all his letters and papers of the period runs the same strain
of anxiety over money matters.[312] Although possessed of a modest
estate, which, when subsequently sold, realized £4200,[313] the demands
of a large family, and the increased cost of living, were more than he
could meet. In June, he was, in addition, deprived of his office under
the Master of the Wards, and wrote to his wife that “where we shall
spende the rest of or short tyme I knowe not: the Lorde, I trust, will
direct us in mercye.”[314]
Footnote 310:
_Ibid._, p. 47.
Footnote 311:
R. C. Winthrop, _Life and Letters of John Winthrop_ (Boston, 1869),
vol I, p. 296.
Footnote 312:
_Ibid._ vol. I, p. 286.
Footnote 313:
Letter from J. Winthrop, Jr.; _Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll._, Series V, vol.
VIII, p. 28. Winthrop had appraised it at £5760. R. C. Winthrop, _J.
Winthrop_, vol. II, p. 78.
Footnote 314:
_Ibid._, vol. I, pp. 214 _ff._, 301 _f._
With the discussion then going on in Puritan circles as to Endicott's
settlement at Salem, and with his neighbors actively interested in the
colony at Providence, it was natural that Winthrop should seriously
consider the thought of emigrating. Just at this time, a paper
consisting of arguments for and against settling a plantation in New
England was being circulated among the group of Puritans mentioned
earlier in this chapter. The reasons given in favor of it were mainly
religious and economic. The first dwelt upon the glory of opposing
Anti-Christ, in the form of the French Jesuits in Canada, and of raising
“a particular church” in New England, while the second referred to the
supposed surplus population at home, and to the standard and cost of
living which had “growne to that height of intemperance in all excesse
of Riott, as noe mans estate allmost will suffice to keepe saile with
his aequalls.”[315]
Footnote 315:
R. C. Winthrop, _J. Winthrop_, vol. I, pp. 308, 328.
The document, which has come down to us in at least four different
forms, was possibly drafted by Winthrop himself, though the evidence is
only inferential, and it has also been attributed to the Reverend John
White and others.[316] It is interesting to note that John Hampden wrote
to Sir John Eliot, then in prison, for a copy of it.[317] Whether or not
Winthrop was the author, several copies, one of them indorsed “May,
1629,” contain memoranda of “Particular considerations in the case of J.
W.,” in which he wrote that the success of the plan had come to depend
upon him, for “the chiefe supporters (uppon whom the rest depends) will
not stirr wthout him,” and that his wife and children are in favor of
it. “His meanes,” moreover, he wrote, “heer are so shortened (now 3 of
his sonnes being com to age have drawen awaie the one half of his
estate) as he shall not be able to continue in that place and imployment
where he now iss, his ordinary charg being still as great almost as when
his meanes was double”; and that “if he lett pass this opportunitie,
That talent wch God hath bestowed uppon him for publicke service is like
to be buried.”[318] “With what comfort can I live,” he added in one
version, “wth 7 or 8 servts in that place and condition where for many
years I have spent 3: or 400 li yearly and maintained a greater
chardge?”[319] The prospects in England, for his wife and children, lay
heavily on his mind. “For my care of thee and thine,” he wrote to the
former, after the die was cast, “I will say nothing. The Lord knows my
heart, that it was one great motive to draw me into this course.”[320]
Footnote 316:
The editor of this life of Winthrop (vol. I, pp. 308, 318) naturally
claims it for his ancestor. Channing thinks it probable (_History_,
vol. I, p. 327); but Doyle does not (_Puritan Colonies_, vol. I, p.
85). _Cf._ _Mass. Hist. Soc. Proceedings_, Series I, vols. VIII, pp.
413-30, and XII, pp. 237 _ff._
Footnote 317:
Letter of Dec. 8, 1629; _Ibid._, vol. VIII, p. 427.
Footnote 318:
_Mass. Hist. Soc. Proceedings_, Series I, vol. VIII, p. 420. The
wording is slightly different in the version in R. C. Winthrop, _J.
Winthrop_, vol. I, p. 327.
Footnote 319:
_Mass. Hist. Soc. Proceedings_, Series I, vol. XII, p. 238.
Footnote 320:
Letter of Jan. 15, 1630; R. C. Winthrop, _J. Winthrop_, vol. I, p.
366.
His judgment regarding the ending of the opportunity for a public career
for such as himself in England was obviously wrong, as events developed
there. The England which retained a Pym, a Hampden, an Eliot, and a
Cromwell, may well have offered scope for the talents of a Winthrop. As
our eyes are usually fastened on this side of the water, we are apt to
think of the Pilgrims, Puritans, and other immigrants as starting their
careers by coming here. We rarely consider them in the light of leaving
behind them other possible careers in England. It is no disparagement of
the courage with which they faced the wilderness, to think of them, for
a moment, as Englishmen, abandoning their place in the struggle at home,
and to consider the type of mind which thus preferred to exchange the
simplifications of unpeopled America for the complexities of the
situation in England. Is it, perhaps, altogether fanciful, to attribute,
in slight part, that deeply ingrained feeling of Americans, that they
wish to have nothing to do with the problems of the world at large, to
this choice of the founders in abandoning their place in the struggles
of Europe for a more untrammeled career on a small provincial stage?
Winthrop's reasons have been thus dwelt upon, because, in the motives
given by him who was the purest, gentlest, and broadest-minded of all
who were to guide the destinies of the Bay Colony, we presumably find
the highest of those which animated any of the men who sought its
shores. As we descend the scale of character, the religious incentives
narrow and disappear, as does also the desire for honorable public
service, and the economic factor alone remains.
In July, a few weeks after Winthrop lost his office, Isaac Johnson, a
brother-in-law of the Earl of Lincoln, wrote to Emanuel Downing, a
brother-in-law of Winthrop, asking them to meet at Sempringham, the
Earl's seat in Lincolnshire, whither they both went on the 28th.[321]
There they undoubtedly met Dudley, Johnson, Humphrey, and others of that
family and social group. All those gathered there, so far as we know,
were keenly interested in the project for Massachusetts. As they were
also in close touch with Warwick, Rich, and others of those who were
just at the moment planning to send out the colony to Providence in
September, it is probable that both places were considered, and Warwick
continued for years to urge Winthrop and his group to move to the
southern colony. The decision, however, was in favor of Massachusetts;
and, a few weeks later, on August 26, Saltonstall, Dudley, Johnson,
Humphrey, Winthrop, and seven others, signed an agreement by which they
bound themselves to be ready, with their families and goods, by the
first of the following March, to embark for New England, and to settle
there permanently.[322]
Footnote 321:
_Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll._, Series IV, vol. VI, pp. 29 _f._ Sempringham
is a tiny hamlet, and of the beautiful house of the Earls of Lincoln,
only the garden wall remains. W. F. Rawnsley, _Highways and Byways in
Lincolnshire_ (London, 1914), p. 38. The house is mentioned in
Camden's _Brittania_ (ed. London, 1806), vol. II, p. 334.
Footnote 322:
R. C. Winthrop, _J. Winthrop_, vol. I, pp. 344 _f._
There was one clause in the agreement, of incalculable importance.
“Provided always,” so it read, “that before the last of September next,
the whole Government, together with the patent for the said plantation,
be first, by an order of court, legally transferred and established to
remain with us and others which shall inhabit upon the said
Plantation.”[323] Possibly as a result of consultation with the
Cambridge signers, Governor Cradock, at a meeting of the court of the
Company a month earlier, had read certain propositions, “conceived by
himself,” which anticipated this condition. They seem to have struck
those present as serious and novel, and of such importance in their
possible consequences as to call for deferred consideration in great
secrecy. The matter was brought up at a number of successive meetings,
and it was only after much debate, objections on the part of many, and
the taking of legal advice, that the court finally voted that the
charter and government might be removed to America.[324] By such
transfer, and the use made of the charter in New England, what was
intended to be a mere trading company, similar to those which had
preceded it, became transformed into a self-governing commonwealth,
whose rulers treated the charter as if it were the constitution of an
independent state. Such an interpretation could not legally be carried
beyond a certain point, and the attempt was bound to break down under
the strain.
Footnote 323:
_Ibid._, p. 345.
Footnote 324:
_Massachusetts Records_, vol. I, pp. 49-52, 55.
The step, in its far-reaching consequences, was one of the most
important events in the development of the British colonies, but its
story remains a mystery. It was a completely new departure, but may have
been suggested to the leaders by the act of the Pilgrims in buying out
their English partners and thus in effect, though without any legal
authority, constituting themselves a self-governing community. There has
been much discussion as to whether the absence in the original charter
of any words indicating that the corporation was to remain in England
was due to accident or design. It is impossible to prove the point
either way, for Winthrop's statement, of somewhat uncertain application
and written many years later, does not seem conclusive against the other
facts and probabilities.[325] The proceedings at the meetings of the
court show clearly, at least, that many of the most active patentees had
had no inkling of any such conscious alteration of the document at the
time of issue, nor does it seem likely that Charles I would have
knowingly consented. If the charter were intentionally so worded as to
create “the Adventurers a Corporation upon the Place,”[326] for the
purpose the wording was later made to serve, then such of the leaders as
arranged the matter consciously hoodwinked both the government and many
of their own associates.
Footnote 325:
R. C. Winthrop, _J. Winthrop_, vol. II, p. 443; C. Deane, in _Mass.
Hist. Soc. Proceedings_, Series I, vol. XI, pp. 166 _ff._; Mellen
Chamberlain, _Ibid._, Series II, vol. VIII, p. 110; J. Parker in
_Lowell Lectures_, pp. 365 _ff._; and Osgood, _American Colonies_,
vol. I, pp. 145 _ff._, 183.
At length, however, the consent of the patentees was obtained, after
their counsel had approved the legality of the step; and in October, in
contemplation of the removal of the government to America, Winthrop was
elected Governor, and Humphrey, Deputy, in place of those who were to
remain behind.[327] Eight months later, in the early summer of 1630,
Winthrop and a band of between nine hundred and a thousand immigrants
landed in America, and settled what were later known as the towns of
Charlestown, Boston, Medford, Watertown, Roxbury, Lynn, and
Dorchester.[328] Eighty of the inhabitants already planted at Salem
under Endicott had died during the winter, and of those who formed the
present settlements, about two hundred succumbed between the time of
leaving England and the end of December, including Johnson, his wife the
Lady Arbella, the Reverend Mr. Higginson, and other important members of
the colony.[329]
Footnote 326:
Decision of the English Chief Justices in 1677; _Acts Privy Council,
Colonial_, vol. I, p. 724. _Cf._ _Ibid._, p. 841.
Footnote 327:
_Massachusetts Records_, vol. I, pp. 59 _f._ At the last moment, as
Humphrey's sailing was delayed, Dudley was elected in his place.
_Ibid._, p. 70.
Footnote 328:
The ships did not all arrive together. Some were delayed until the
first week in July. John Winthrop, _History of New England_ (ed.
Boston, 1853), vol. I, p. 34. _Cf._ Young, _Chron. Mass._, pp. 310
_ff._
Footnote 329:
Dudley's Letter, in Young, _Chron. Mass._, pp. 311, 319.
The settlers, apparently, did not have time to house themselves properly
before winter came on, and many, particularly of the poor, had to face
the icy winds of a New England January with no better shelter than a
canvas tent.[330] Provisions, even in England, were exceedingly scarce
and dear that year, partly, some claimed, because of the large
quantities taken out by emigrants to New England and the other
plantations.[331] Massachusetts had evidently not received her share, if
such had been the case, and famine soon faced the settlers, who were
forced to live partly on mussels and acorns.[332] Even upon their
arrival in the summer, food had been so scarce that they had been forced
to give their liberty to a hundred and eighty servants, entailing a loss
of between three and four hundred pounds.[333] The cold, which had held
off until December 24, suddenly came on in extreme severity, and “such a
Christmas eve they had never seen before.” The contrast with the
Christmas Day which the Warwick settlers were passing at Providence, in
the Caribbean, was complete; and Humphrey and Downing, who were in
frequent conference with the earl and with Rich, kept writing to advise
Winthrop to move the colony farther south, if only to the Hudson
River.[334] At a critical moment, the ship Lion, which Winthrop had had
the foresight to send at once to England for provisions, arrived with a
new supply; but so deep was the discouragement, that many returned in
her to the old home, never to come back. Others, however, were of
sterner stuff, and took passage in the same boat to fetch their
families.[335]
Footnote 330:
J. Winthrop, _History_, vol. I, p. 52.
Footnote 331:
_Cal. St. Pap., Dom., 1628-9_, p. 266; _Acts Privy Council, Colonial_,
vol. I, p. 154.
Footnote 332:
R. Clap, Memoirs, in Young, _Chron. Mass._, p. 352.
Footnote 333:
Dudley's Letter, _Ibid._, p. 312.
Footnote 334:
Letters in _Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll._, Series IV, vol. VI, pp. 3, 8, 38.
Footnote 335:
Hutchinson, _History_, vol. I, p. 29. For details of the first winter,
as noted by one of the poorer emigrants, _cf._, Letter to Wm. Pond
from his son, _Mass. Hist. Soc. Proceedings_, Series II, vol. VIII,
pp. 471 _ff._
At last the winter passed, and with the summer came renewed hope. The
public business had been temporarily managed by the Assistants only, and
the first General Court was not held until October. At that session the
charter was violated in an important point, in that the freemen
relinquished their right to elect the governor and the deputy.
Thereafter, it was ruled, these were to be elected by the Assistants
only, with whom they were to have the power of making laws and
appointing officers.[336] The extent of this limitation of the right of
election, which was revoked, however, at the next General Court, is
evident from the fact that in March, in contemplation of the probability
of there being less than nine Assistants left in the colony, it was
agreed that seven should constitute a court. In fact, the charter was
continually violated in that regard, as the number of Assistants, for
over fifty years, was never more than about one half of the required
eighteen.[337]
Footnote 336:
_Massachusetts Records_, vol. I, pp. 73, 78, 79.
Footnote 337:
_Massachusetts Records_, vol. I, p. 84; Hutchinson, _History_, vol. I,
p. 293 _n._ _Cf._ _Acts Privy Council, Colonial_, vol. I, p. 842.
The Assistants, into whose hands the control of the government now
passed, were probably a majority of the entire voting population of the
colony. According to the terms of the charter only members of the
Company, or the so-called freemen, had the right to vote at its
meetings. After the “sea-change” which was presumed to have altered that
document into “something rich and strange” in the way of political
constitutions, those meetings became the political assemblies of the
colony, and the freemen of the Company became the only enfranchised
voters of the state. While two thousand persons were settled in
Massachusetts about the time of that October meeting, it is probable
that not more than sixteen to twenty members of the Company had crossed
the ocean, of whom a number had returned or died.[338] If the charter
were indeed the written constitution of a state, it was unique among
such instruments in that it thus limited all political rights, in a
community of two thousand persons, to a tiny self-perpetuating
oligarchical group of not more than a dozen citizens. Ninety-nine and
one half per cent of the population was thus unenfranchised and
unrepresented, and even denied the right of appeal to the higher
authorities in England.
Footnote 338:
Palfrey, _History_, vol. I, pp. 313, 323.
Such was the situation, brought about with full knowledge and intention,
and as long as possible persisted in, by the Puritan leaders. Those
leaders, as we have such clear proof in the case of the noblest of them,
John Winthrop, seem to have come to Massachusetts with three distinct
and clearly understood objects. They wished, first, to found and develop
a peculiar type of community, best expressed by the term
Bible-Commonwealth, in which the political and religious elements, in
themselves and in their relations to one another, should be but two
aspects of the same method of so regulating the lives of individuals as
to bring them into harmony with the expressed will of God, as
interpreted by the self-appointed rulers. Secondly, both as religious
zealots, who felt that they had come into possession of ultimate truth,
and as active-minded Englishmen, desirous of an outlet for their
administrative energies, they considered themselves as the best
qualified rulers and the appointed guardians for the community which
they had founded. Lastly, having been largely determined by economic
considerations in venturing their fortunes in the enterprise, they
looked with fear, as well as jealousy, upon any possibility of allowing
control of policy, of law and order, and of legislation concerning
person and property, to pass to others.
In such a church-state, no civil question could be considered aside from
its possible religious bearings; no religious opinion could be discussed
apart from its political implications. It was a system which could be
maintained permanently only by the most rigid denial of political free
speech and religious toleration. Fortunately, however, it contained
within itself the seeds of its own dissolution. Apart from other
factors, the church-covenant idea, brought by the Pilgrims, accepted by
Endicott, and indorsed by the three churches formed by the Winthrop
colonists, in 1630, at Dorchester, Charlestown, and Watertown, was the
seed of a democratic conception of the state, which grew so persistently
as to defy all efforts of its own planters to destroy it. The attitude
of the two most influential Massachusetts leaders, lay and
ecclesiastical, is not a matter of inference. “Democracy,” wrote
Winthrop, after stating that there “was no such government in Israel,”
is “amongst civil nations, accounted the meanest and worst of all forms
of government.” To allow it in Massachusetts would be “a manifest breach
of the 5th. Commandment.”[339] “Democracy,” wrote John Cotton to Lord
Say and Sele, “I do not conceive that ever God did ordeyne as a fit
government eyther for church or commonwealth. If the people be
governers, who shall be governed?”[340] We have already quoted Gooch's
statement that “democracy is the child of the Reformation, not of the
Reformers.” The democracy of Massachusetts, slow in developing, was the
child of the church-covenant and of the frontier, not of the Puritan
leaders.
Footnote 339:
R. C. Winthrop, _J. Winthrop_, vol. II, p. 430. I have modernized the
spelling.
Footnote 340:
Hutchinson, _History_, Appendix, vol. I, p. 437.
While the latter were thus attempting to found and maintain an
aristocracy or oligarchy to guard a church polity which was
unconsciously but implicitly democratic,[341] their position was
rendered precarious at the very outset, and increasingly so as time went
on, by the necessary presence in the colony of that large unenfranchised
class which was not in sympathy with them. As we have seen, even under
strong social and political temptation, three quarters of the
population, though probably largely Puritan in sentiment and belief,
persistently refused to ally themselves with the New England type of
Puritan church. Their presence in the colony was undoubtedly due to
economic motives, more especially, perhaps, the desire to own their
lands in fee. It must also have been due to economic considerations on
the part of the Puritan rulers. The planting of a Bible-Commonwealth
might have been possible without these non-church members, but the
creation of a prosperous and populous state was not, as was evidenced by
statistics throughout its life. Even of the first thousand who came with
Winthrop, it is probable that many were without strong religious
motives; that few realized the plans of the leaders; and it is
practically certain that the great bulk of them had never seen the
charter.
Footnote 341:
_Cf._ H. L, Osgood, “Political Ideas of the Puritans”; _Political
Science Quarterly_, vol. VI, p. 21.
Many of the more active soon wished to have some voice in the management
of their own affairs; and at the October meeting of the General Court,
one hundred and eight, including Conant, Maverick, and Blackstone among
the old planters, requested that they be made freemen.[342] It became
evident to the dozen or so men who alone possessed the governing power,
that some extension of the franchise would be necessary if the leading
spirits among their two thousand subjects were not to emigrate again to
other colonies, or to foment trouble at home. On the other hand, the
extension of the franchise was, in their minds, fraught with the perils
already indicated. The decision to extend the franchise, but to limit
its powers, and to violate the terms of the charter by placing the
election of the governor and deputy in the hands of the Assistants
instead of the freemen, was probably the result of an effort to solve
this problem. Before the next meeting of the General Court in the
following May, at which the new freemen were to be admitted, further
thought had evidently been devoted to the question, and another solution
arrived at. Winthrop was chosen Governor, not by the Assistants, as
voted at the preceding meeting, but by “the general consent of the
Court, according to the meaning of the patent”; and the momentous
resolution was adopted that “noe man shall be admitted to the freedome
of this body polliticke, but such as are members of some of the churches
within the lymitts of the same.”[343] The first attempt on the part of
its unenfranchised subjects to secure a larger share of political
liberty had resulted merely in establishing, more firmly than before,
the theocratical and oligarchical nature of the government.
Footnote 342:
_Massachusetts Records_, vol. I, pp. 79, 80.
Footnote 343:
_Massachusetts Records_, vol. I, p. 87.
CHAPTER VII
AN ENGLISH OPPOSITION BECOMES A NEW
ENGLAND OLIGARCHY
In an earlier chapter, in discussing the problems which confronted
Elizabeth, we spoke of an established church as a necessity in her day
from all three standpoints—of religion, morals, and politics. We also
touched upon the simplicity of problems as they appear to those in
opposition, as contrasted with their aspect to those who bear the
responsibility of power. In England, in the earlier part of the
seventeenth century, in spite of the example of Holland, the doctrine of
the necessity of a state church, to which all men must conform, in their
capacity of citizens as well as of Christians, was still held, although
the influence of the “dissidence of dissent,” as the logical outcome of
individual interpretation of the Bible, was beginning to be felt. Voices
were being raised in many quarters denouncing the intolerance of the
various sects, both Anglican and Puritan; and, although the Protestants
might consider that the religious glacier which held all men in its
embrace was as rigidly frozen as ever, the ice was, in truth, rapidly
melting beneath the surface. To Englishmen in tolerant Leyden, John
Robinson was preaching that “magistrates are kings and lords over men
properly and directly, as they are their subjects, and not as they are
Christ's,” and that by “compulsion many become atheists, hypocrites, and
Familists, and being at first constrained to practise against
conscience, lose all conscience afterwards.”[344] In England,
Chillingworth, through the doctrine of the innocence of error, was
elevating toleration into a principle of justice and a practicable rule
of government.[345] In the New World, Roger Williams was soon to begin
his life-long struggle against what he vehemently denounced as “that
body-killing, soule-killing, and State-killing doctrine” of religious
persecution by the arm of the civil power.[346]
Footnote 344:
Robinson, _Works_, vol. II, p. 41.
Footnote 345:
Cited by A. A. Seaton, _The Theory of Toleration under the later
Stuarts_ (Cambridge Univ. Press, 1911), p. 56.
Footnote 346:
_Mr. Cotton's Letter examined; Narr. Club Pub._, vol. I, p. 44.
We cannot, perhaps, blame men for not being in advance of their age, or
even for being behind it. The founders of the Bay Colony were but little
qualified, by reason of the narrowness of their views and the intensity
with which they were held, to lead men to any higher ground than that
which they had been accustomed to tread. Moreover, having changed their
place from members of an opposition to members of a government, their
new responsibilities would tend to foster even more strongly that fear
of innovation which is nearly always characteristic of the middle-class
man in power. The exercise of authority is apt to prove an intoxicating
draught, even to the best-intentioned men who have been unaccustomed to
it; and, of the tiny group who now claimed absolute sway over two
thousand subjects, rapidly increasing to sixteen thousand, none had held
any position of administrative importance in the old country. Some of
them had, indeed, occupied offices, but they were rather of a nature to
encourage that intolerance of contradiction, and tendency to arbitrary
action upon a small stage, which are apt, in time, to become
characteristic of the petty judge, the schoolmaster and the clergyman.
Of Endicott's whole career in England, for example, we know only that
his rector spoke of him as “a man well knowne to divers persons of good
note,”[347] which, in reference to a parishioner in a small country
town, more probably referred to his moral character than to any
administrative experience. Winthrop had held an unimportant position in
a law court. Dudley had managed the estate of a nobleman. Cotton was the
rector of a large provincial parish. The work which they and the other
leaders did was done honestly; and although the course they pursued, in
regard both to the religious qualification for the franchise, and to the
later persecutions for religious beliefs, was, in the long run, to
hamper the growth of the colony and to be partly responsible for the
eventual loss of the charter, they should not be too severely condemned,
perhaps, for the illegal and unjust, as well as politically unwise,
course, upon which they now entered. It must be said, however, that,
when the great opportunity was offered them of advancing the cause of
religious liberty, they turned aside. To the new voices being raised on
behalf of justice and humanity, the Massachusetts leaders were as deaf
as Laud and the Anglican hierarchy. Equally, and for the same reason,
each party solidly and consciously blocked the path to toleration in so
far as lay in its power.
Footnote 347:
White, _Planter's Plea_, p. 43.
The problems of government in the new country soon came thick upon the
little group from the opposition in the old. The notorious Morton, for
example, was once more singing and trading in “his old nest in the
Massachusetts,” in the autumn of the year in which Winthrop landed.
There were valid reasons, notably his selling fire-arms to the Indians,
which might have served adequately as warrant for his arrest by the
authorities; but when that action was decided upon, the alleged grounds
bore a curiously trumped-up appearance. In the official order for his
apprehension, no crime was mentioned; and in his sentence the only
matters cited were the “many wrongs he hath done” the Indians, and the
theft of a canoe from them.[348] Whatever the moral nature of his
intercourse with the natives, it was not likely that, from their
standpoint, there had been any very serious crime committed against them
by a man living almost isolated in their midst, and whose sole business
was trading with them. The convenient, but apparently unfounded,
suspicions of a murder committed by him in England, and a warrant
procured from the Chief Justice for his shipment thither, could not have
served as a basis for any sentence inflicted in Massachusetts.[349] The
probable truth is that the Puritans either wanted to teach the
discontented “old planters” a lesson, for which purpose Morton offered
himself as an easy victim, or they suspected, what was indeed the fact,
that he was in communication with Gorges.[350] Obviously, neither of
these could be openly alleged as a cause for the punishment they
inflicted, which was extraordinarily severe. He was put in the stocks
and deported to England; his entire property was confiscated, and his
house burned to the ground. Set at liberty in England with little delay,
he got into communication with Gorges, and was soon joined by two other
victims of colonial methods.
Footnote 348:
_Massachusetts Records_, vol. I, pp. 74 _f._
Footnote 349:
Bradford, _Plymouth_, p. 253.
Footnote 350:
C. F. Adams, _New English Canaan of Thomas Morton_ (Prince Soc.,
Boston, 1883), p. 41. For a fair and full account, _cf._ the same
author's _Three Episodes_, vol. I, pp. 240-50. Morton's own account is
in his _New English Canaan_, pp. 108 _ff._
Gorges, though a stanch supporter of the Church of England, was in close
relations with the Puritan peers. He and Warwick were having constant
dealings, as both were active in the Council for New England, and his
son John was a brother-in-law of the Earl of Lincoln, in whose house, as
we have seen, the Massachusetts project took shape. There is nothing to
indicate any hostility upon his part to the Massachusetts colony until
1632; and the several emissaries whom he secretly sent there were
probably dispatched for the sole purpose of seeing whether or not the
settlers were encroaching upon the lands claimed by himself and his son
Robert, whose rights, it will be recalled, he specifically reserved when
he consented to the granting of the Massachusetts charter. The grantees
of that instrument, however, denied that the Gorges rights had any legal
validity, and claimed and occupied the disputed land as their own. A
quarrel was, therefore, inevitable, and as the Puritans, it must be
confessed, had little respect for legality themselves, they could, when
need required, be counted upon to take such steps as they might see fit
to oppose any action of Gorges.
Winthrop had been scarcely a month on the shores of the Bay, when
another newcomer arrived in the shape of one of the most picturesque and
mysterious characters who were ever to stroll on Boston Common. Sir
Christopher Gardiner, Knight of the Sepulchre (somewhat whited),
suddenly appeared, with no ostensible business, but with that unexpected
phenomenon in the Puritan colony, a pretty young mistress. To be sure,
he called her cousin, but it was soon suspected, as Bradford somewhat
quaintly wrote, that “she (after the Italian manner) was his
concubine.”[351] In spite of the fact that a late defender has claimed
that “he was unfitted for the quiet pleasures of domestic life,”[352] he
seems to have made some efforts in that direction; for the authorities
soon received word from London to the effect that he had two wives
there, who were then in conference, and of whom one was calling loudly
for his conversion, and the other for his destruction.[353] On the first
of March, 1631, it was ordered by the Massachusetts court that he and
seven others should be sent prisoners to England by the good ship
Lyon;[354] but the knight, getting word of what was proposed, fled to
the Indians.[355] Some weeks later he was taken into custody by the
Plymouth people, who asserted that they had found on his person evidence
that he was a Roman Catholic.[356] While he was lodged in jail in
Boston, letters addressed to him by Gorges, as well as one to the absent
Morton, came into the hands of Winthrop, who opened them, and decided
that they indicated a design on the part of Gorges to regain possession
of his land—an ambition not wholly unnatural.[357] Whether or not the
authorities decided that it was wiser that Gardiner should not appear in
England to add his testimony to that of Morton, nothing further seems to
have been done to carry into effect the order for his deportation, and
he was soon set at liberty.
Footnote 351:
Bradford, _Plymouth_, p. 294.
Footnote 352:
P. Oliver, _The Puritan Commonwealth_ (Boston, 1856), p. 35.
Footnote 353:
Dudley's Letter, in Young, _Chron. Mass._, p. 333.
Footnote 354:
_Massachusetts Records_, vol. I, p. 83.
Footnote 355:
J. Winthrop, _History_, vol. I, p. 65.
Footnote 356:
Bradford, _Plymouth_, p. 295.
Footnote 357:
J. Winthrop, _History_, vol. I, p. 68.
Meanwhile a lonely settler from Maine had appeared in Boston, and had
looked with favor upon Gardiner's fair companion. He decided to marry
the lady and to take her back to the Eveless Eden of the Androscoggin.
Gardiner himself accompanied them, and the curiously assorted trio spent
the winter together at Brunswick, from which season there was an odd
echo in the Maine law courts nine years later, when Gardiner's host, and
not himself, was properly sued for a warming-pan stolen by the knight
during his chilly stay. In the summer of 1632, Gardiner landed in
England just in time to add his witness to that of Morton and Ratcliffe
in Gorges's attack upon the Massachusetts charter.[358]
Ratcliffe, who was a mentally unbalanced servant of Cradock, had
apparently talked loosely about the government and the Salem church. For
these “mallitious and scandulous speeches,” as the crime was designated
in his sentence by the court, he was whipped, had both his ears cut off,
was fined the impossible sum of £40, and banished from the colony.[359]
He was not long in joining Morton and Gardiner in England, and becoming
one more arrow in Gorges's quiver.
These cases, moreover, though they proved more important individually,
in their reaction upon the colony, by no means stood alone. A certain
Thomas Gray, for an unspecified crime, was banished, his house was
pulled down, and all Englishmen were enjoined from giving him shelter,
“under such penalty as the Court shall thinke meete to inflicte.” Thomas
Dexter, for saying, “This captious government will bring all to naught,”
adding that “the best of them was but an atturney, &c.,” was put in the
stocks, fined £40, and disfranchised. Henry Lynn, “for writeing into
England falsely and mallitiously against the government and execuccion
of justice here,” was ordered whipped and banished; while Thomas Knower
was put in the stocks for saying that, if punished, he would have the
legality of his sentence tried in England.[360]
Footnote 358:
C. F. Adams, _Mass. Hist. Soc. Proceedings_, Series I, vol. XX, p. 80.
Footnote 359:
_Massachusetts Records_, vol. I, p. 88; J. Winthrop, _History_, vol.
I, p. 67.
Footnote 360:
_Massachusetts Records_, vol. I, pp. 77, 101, 103, 104, 102.
The course of justice, if no worse than in contemporary England, was
evidently but little improved by its passage overseas, or by being
administered by those who had been so loud in their denunciations of the
summary methods of Laud and the High Commission. It seemed to many, as
to the “old planter” Blackstone, that the tyranny of the “Lord-Bishops”
had merely been exchanged for that of the “Lord-Brethren”; and it was
evident also that the fixed policy of the leaders was to allow no
appeals from their decisions to the home courts of England. All the
colonists, therefore, who would not, on the one hand, wholly refrain
from criticizing the policy and acts of the leaders, and, on the other,
prove themselves acceptable to the clergy, and so secure the franchise
by being elected freemen, were wholly without representation, without
voice in the making of their laws, and without recourse to the courts
and king at home.
As the charter was that of a trading corporation, the levying of taxes
was a mere development of the right to assess shareholders, and,
therefore, extended only to freemen. But no such legal restriction was
observed, and from the beginning, the authorities taxed the non-freemen
equally with themselves, though denying them the political rights which
they themselves possessed.[361] Indeed, not only their property was thus
subject to enactments in which they had no voice, but their time and the
work of their hands as well; for the General Court passed a law that all
except members of the court, and officers of the church and
commonwealth, were liable to be impressed for manual labor on all public
works.[362] The town meeting, indeed, seems to have been the only place
in which the great majority of the colonists could legally make their
voice heard at all, and there only upon questions concerning the most
trivial local matters.
Footnote 361:
H. L. Osgood, “New England Colonial Finance in the 17th Century”;
_Political Science Quarterly_, vol. XIX, p. 82.
Footnote 362:
_Massachusetts Records_, vol. I, p. 124.
The New England town, already noted as one of the three typical
institutions in the development and influence of that section, may be
considered in its origin as “the politically active congregation,” bound
together, in addition to its church ties, by a peculiar agrarian
policy.[363] Originating at Plymouth, it became universal throughout the
Puritan colonies on the mainland, and was reproduced with extraordinary
fidelity of detail wherever New Englanders migrated. The New England
colonies, for the most part, neither sold nor rented their land, but
granted it freely in fee to actual settlers, in rough proportion to
their present ability to use it.[364] In general most of it was granted
primarily to towns, which owned it in their corporate capacity; and by
them it was allotted to individuals in the form of home-lots or arable
land and meadow. The remainder formed the “common,” for the use of all,
under certain restrictions. The whole land-system, as well as the
methods of cultivation, exhibited many striking resemblances to those of
our early Teutonic ancestors; and, some years ago, these coincidences
were largely insisted upon as cases of genuine survival.[365] It is more
probable that a return to favorable wilderness conditions merely
strengthened those primitive elements still remaining in the manorial
system, with which the settlers were familiar in England. As we have
already pointed out, the geographical environment in New England, as
contrasted with that of the other colonies, tended strongly to develop
the type of compact settlement. This was further reinforced by the form
of emigration, which was distinctly of neighborhood groups, and by the
type of church government.
Footnote 363:
M. Eggleston, _The Land System of the New England Colonies_, Johns
Hopkins Univ. Studies, Baltimore, 1886. _Cf._ also C. M. Andrews, _The
River Towns of Conn._, J. H. U. S., 1889; W. E. Foster, _Town
Government in Rhode Island_, J. H. U. S., 1886; A. B. Maclear, _Early
New England Towns_, Columbia Univ. Studies, 1908; H. L. Osgood,
_American Colonies_, vol. I, pp. 424 _ff._; and for English towns on
Long Island, J. T. Adams, _History of the Town of Southampton_
(Bridgehampton, 1918), pp. 94-103.
Footnote 364:
The occasional few and unimportant exceptions do not affect the
general statement.
Footnote 365:
_Cf._ H. B. Adams, _The Germanic Origin of New England Towns_, J. H.
U. S., 1882; Id., _Village Communities of Cape Anne and Salem_, J. H.
U. S., 1883; G. E. Howard, _Local Constitutional History of the U.
S._, J. H. U. S., 1889. Too enthusiastic believers should read “The
Survival of Archaic Communities,” in F. W. Maitland, _Collected
Papers_ (Cambridge Univ. Press, 1911), vol. II, pp. 313 _ff._
The exigencies of the situation, when the settlers first landed, had
necessitated their dispersal in various communities, whose members at
once found it needful to manage their local affairs to some extent by
meeting together among themselves. The charter made no provision for any
but a general government; nor, under it, did the company have any legal
right to incorporate other bodies. These more or less informal local
governments were, therefore, extra-legal both before and after the
passage of a township act by which it was attempted specifically to give
them certain rights of local administration. At the town meetings, which
at first were spontaneous, and afterward regulated, all the inhabitants
had the right to be present and to take part in the discussion of public
affairs, although only the freemen were entitled to vote, except upon a
few questions of minor importance. The distinction was somewhat similar
to that in the churches, which all could attend, but in the management
of which only church members had a voice. The town meeting, therefore,
was a completely democratic institution in only one of its aspects,
although it came to have great influence upon both political theory and
practice.
A further development brought these local communities into working
relations with the General Court. Owing to the distance of the scattered
settlements from Boston, and the danger of all the freemen being absent
at once from their homes, it was enacted, in 1634, that every town
should elect two or three deputies, who should have the power of the
whole, and who should act as their representatives in the General
Court.[366] As the charter provided that seven of the eighteen
Assistants must be present in the Court in order to constitute a quorum,
that body was now composed of a small number of Assistants and a
steadily growing number of Deputies. As the Virginia House of Burgesses
had been established in 1619, and the Bermuda Assembly in 1620, the
representative government provided for in Massachusetts was the third in
the colonies.[367]
Footnote 366:
_Massachusetts Records_, vol. I, p. 118.
Footnote 367:
_Cf._ J. H. Lefroy, _On the Constitutional History of the Bermudas_
(Westminster, 1881), p. 6.
Owing to the close alliance maintained between the clergy and the
Magistrates, as the Assistants soon came to be called, the body of
deputies grew to be considered the more popular element in the Court. It
was clear that real grievances and the democratic influences at work in
the town meeting were likely to develop into attacks upon the arbitrary
power of the very limited body of freemen. The form that the struggle
assumed was that of a contest, lasting twenty years, between the
deputies and the magistrates, with the influence of the clergy
constantly on the side of the latter. The freemen themselves were,
indeed, not all in favor of the arbitrary exercise of power by the small
oligarchical group which for so long remained in control. As early as
1631, the people of Watertown, when taxed for fortifying Newtown,
declared that “it was not safe to pay moneys after that sort, for fear
of bringing themselves and posterity into bondage.”[368] Although
legally in the right, they accepted Winthrop's interpretation of the
charter, which is interesting as showing how completely the unjustified
transformation from a company into a commonwealth had already been
effected in the minds of the leaders.
Footnote 368:
J. Winthrop, _History_, vol. I, p. 84.
Although the people, until well into the eighteenth century, probably
had little thought of becoming independent of England, it seems clear
from all the acts of the leaders, especially the transfer of the charter
itself, that it was their intention, even before leaving England, to
govern in as complete independence of that country as future
circumstances might permit. They wished, it is true, to found a state
for the glory of God and the establishment of true religion, but in
which, nevertheless, they themselves should constitute the supreme
power. Every encroachment upon it, from any direction, was grudgingly
yielded to; and it is not unlikely that, even then, some of them dreamed
of an actual political independence. “We are not a free state,” wrote
Pyncheon to Winthrop, in 1646, evidently with this in mind; “neither do
I think it our wisdom to be a free state; though we had our liberty, we
cannot _as yet_ subsist without England.”[369]
Footnote 369:
_Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll._, Series IV, vol. VI, p. 383. The italics are
mine.
The political history of Massachusetts under the charter was thus made
up of two separate elements. The first was the resistance of the
governing group to any effort of England, legal or illegal, to assert
her rights, even justly, over her colony; and the second was the
struggle of a part of the colonists themselves, for toleration and
liberty, against the governing class. Even had the colony never
separated from England, we should, in all probability, have come to
possess the same measure of civil liberty and religious toleration that
the English have to-day; but that separation having taken place, had the
Puritan oligarchy retained and extended their power, we should have but
little of either. It is, therefore, the second conflict which, although
less dramatic, is the more vital in the history of human freedom. We
must now turn to consider the earliest important attacks from both of
the quarters indicated.
Of those from across the water, the first was launched, as could well
have been foreseen, by Sir Ferdinando Gorges, and was brought upon the
colony directly through the policy pursued by its leaders. The untiring
interest of Gorges in the affairs of New England, and his hope of yet
creating a profitable settlement there for himself, were both well known
to the Puritans. The old knight had spent vastly greater sums in the
effort to plant the wilderness than had been contributed by any
individual among themselves. He had attempted the colonization of Maine
at a time when the men who were now engaged in banishing his agents were
hardly more than children.[370] He had made no effort to disturb the
Pilgrims during their ten-years' stay at Plymouth, and would probably
have left the Massachusetts settlers also in peace, had it not been for
their denial of the rights he claimed in a part of the soil they had
preëmpted, and for their treatment of his emissaries. The Massachusetts
authorities, by throwing down the gauntlet, had created a powerful enemy
who was not slow in picking it up.
Footnote 370:
Winthrop was a lad of 19 in 1607, and Endicott but 16.
In 1632, Gorges and Mason, with the assistance of Gardiner, Morton, and
Ratcliffe, prepared a petition, which was presented to the Privy Council
in December.[371] Winthrop stated that among many false accusations and
“some truths misrepeated,” it accused the colony of separating from the
Church of England, and of threatening to cast off its political
allegiance.[372] Supporters of the company in England hastily put into
motion those unseen agencies that were most efficacious in doing
business at the court of Charles; and, in spite of what seemed
overwhelming odds against them, in courtly influence, won an unexpected
victory, even gaining a word of commendation from the King.[373] Their
success is involved in a mystery, which, however, we suspect might be
unlocked by that same “golden key” which the Pilgrims were using
contemporaneously at another of the royal doors. Meanwhile, the Council
for New England had requested that the Company's charter be presented
for examination, and Humphrey had been forced to confess that it was in
New England, stating that, though he had often written for it, he had
been unable to obtain it.[374]
Footnote 371:
_Acts Privy Council, Colonial_, vol. I, p. 183.
Footnote 372:
J. Winthrop, _History_, vol. I, p. 122.
Footnote 373:
J. Winthrop, _History_, vol. I, p. 123 _n._
Footnote 374:
Records Council for New England; _American Antiquarian Society
Proceedings_, 1866, p. 107.
The demand, however, was repeated from a more powerful source two years
later. In 1633, Laud had become Archbishop of Canterbury, and had
declared war upon the Puritans. Colonial affairs, which had heretofore
been considered, when considered at all, by the Privy Council, were now
put into the hands of a body styled “the Lords Commissioners for
Plantations in General,” which was headed by the Archbishop, and given
almost royal powers in both civil and ecclesiastical matters, including
that of revoking all charters and patents unduly obtained.[375] Gorges
utilized this new opportunity, and at once began to work upon the
Archbishop's hatred of Puritanism, in order to recover his own legal
claims. On February 21, 1634, the Board, having taken into consideration
the great numbers of persons “known to be ill-affected and discontented,
as well with the Civil as Ecclesiastical government,” who were daily
resorting to New England, ordered that Cradock produce the Massachusetts
charter.[376] Upon receipt of Cradock's first letter requesting its
return, the authorities at Boston decided to return an evasive answer,
ignoring the Council's demand. After the first communication had been
followed by an official copy of the order itself, word was returned by
Winslow, who was acting as agent for both Plymouth and Massachusetts,
that the charter could not be sent except by a vote of the General
Court, which body would not meet until September.[377]
Footnote 375:
C. M. Andrews, _British Committees, Commissions, and Councils of Trade
and Plantations, 1622-1675_, J. H. U. S., 1908, pp. 16 _f._
Footnote 376:
_Acts Privy Council, Colonial_, vol. I, p. 199. The order is given in
Hubbard, _History_, p. 153.
Footnote 377:
J. Winthrop, _History_, vol. I, pp. 161, 163.
Meanwhile, Gorges was plying the English authorities with letters
advising that a governor, “neither papistically nor scizmatically
affected,” be appointed for New England, modestly suggesting that he
himself was an eminently proper person for the office, and urging that
the Massachusetts charter be repealed.[378] His wish was gratified as to
the first two points, and it looked as if he was at last to see the
shores of that land which had been the chief object of his thoughts for
thirty years. Winslow, whose suit, at first, had seemingly prospered,
was suddenly and dramatically confronted, in the presence of Laud, with
his old enemy Morton of Merry Mount, and, as a result of the latter's
accusations, was temporarily committed to prison.[379]
Footnote 378:
Baxter, _Gorges_, vol. III, pp. 261-75.
Footnote 379:
Bradford, _Plymouth_, p. 330.
The grandiose scheme that Gorges had conceived contemplated the division
of all New England among certain members of the old Council, and the
validating of the individual assignments by legal sanctions. It was also
arranged that the charter should then be resigned by that body, which
had only too truly become, as the declaration read, “a Carcass in a
manner breathless.”[380] This was done in April, and in the following
month a writ of _Quo Warranto_ was entered, to deprive the Massachusetts
company of its own charter, as the final step in the transformation of
New England. Aside from the play of conflicting influences involved, the
leaders, by their handling of affairs, had, without question, violated
the terms of that instrument, and so had given their adversaries a
reputable cause to plead. The verdict was adverse to the Company,
judgment was entered against such of the patentees as appeared, and the
remainder were outlawed. The patentees, however, refused to acknowledge
the action of the courts, and the charter was not returned, though again
demanded two years later.[381] Meanwhile, Gorges's new-risen hopes had
been wholly dashed. Though he had been appointed governor, the King had
provided him with no funds from the empty treasury, and Gorges's own
resources were always inadequate for his undertakings. Mason, who was
aiding him, suddenly died. The ship which was to have carried the knight
to his new province broke as it was being launched, and delay followed
delay, while the aspect of public affairs was rapidly changing.
Footnote 380:
Hazard, _Hist. Coll._, vol. I, p. 391.
Footnote 381:
Hutchinson, _History_, vol. I, p. 85; Hutchinson, _Papers_ (Prince
Soc., Albany, 1865), vol. I, p. 119.
This favorable turn, however, was not foreseen in the colony, and
immediately upon receipt of the news of the appointment of the new
Commission for Plantations, the Massachusetts government prepared for
armed resistance. A sentry was posted on a hill near Boston, to give
notice of the arrival of any hostile ships; £600 was raised for the
completion of the fortifications on Castle Island; a military committee
was appointed; and, a few weeks later, the clergy were consulted as to
what should be done if a general governor were sent out from England.
Their unanimous answer was that “We ought not to accept him, but defend
our lawful possessions (if we are able), otherwise to avoid or
protract.”[382] It must be recalled that the Massachusetts settlers were
as yet Englishmen, and not independent Americans; and the home
government, whose subjects they were, could hardly regard these acts and
utterances otherwise than as rank rebellion, however different an aspect
they might come to wear in the eyes of ourselves as heirs of a
subsequent and successful revolution. Political events in England soon
developed in such a way as to prevent any very serious consideration of
colonial affairs for another quarter of a century, and the policy of
“avoid or protract,” seemed temporarily to serve all purposes.
Footnote 382:
_Massachusetts Records_, vol. I, pp. 136-39; J. Winthrop, _History_,
vol. I, pp. 170, 183. They were also asked whether it was lawful to
retain the cross in the royal ensign, Endicott having chosen this
inopportune moment to give an example of his blundering fanaticism, by
cutting it out. _Massachusetts Records_, vol. I, pp. 136, 147; J.
Winthrop, _History_, vol. I, pp. 175, 183, 199.
The colonial government, which had thus assumed what was practically a
position of avowed independence of the king and courts of England, next
decided to take up a stronger line in regard to its own subjects in the
colony itself, for the spirit of the Watertown freemen against taxation
had evidently spread. Just prior to the meeting of the General Court in
the spring of 1634, every town deputed two men to consider such matters
as might come up; and after consultation, a demand was made upon the
governor to allow them to inspect the charter. Having found upon
examination that the General Court was the only legal body entitled to
legislate, they apparently inquired why that power had been usurped by
the magistrates. Winthrop replied that it was because the General Court
had become unwieldy in size; and he made the suggestion that, for the
present, “they might, at the general court, make an order, that, once in
the year, a certain number should be appointed, (upon summons from the
governor) to revise all laws, etc., and to reform what they found amiss
therein; but not to make any new laws, but prefer their grievances to
the court of assistants; and that no assessments should be laid upon the
country without the consent of such a committee, nor any lands disposed
of.”[383] It is difficult to conceive of a more complete abrogation of
the rights of even the very limited body of freemen; and, though
Winthrop does not tell us how this astonishing offer was received, the
records leave us in no doubt. At the meeting of the General Court, it
was immediately voted that there should be no trial for life or
banishment except by a jury summoned by themselves; that there should be
four such courts a year, not to be dissolved without their own consent;
that none but the General Court had power to make laws or to elect and
remove officials; and that none but the General Court had power to
dispose of lands or to raise money by taxation.[384]
Footnote 383:
J. Winthrop, _History_, vol. I, p. 153.
Footnote 384:
_Massachusetts Records_, vol. I, pp. 117 _ff._
Another incident, of less importance, but interesting as showing the
feeling abroad and the means by which it might, for a time, be
suppressed, occurred at a meeting of the inhabitants of Boston later in
the year, to choose some men to divide additional town-land. The voting
was by secret ballot, for the first time, and Winthrop, Coddington, and
the other leaders failed of election. The first stated in his account of
the affair, that the electors chose mostly men of “the inferior sort,”
fearing that the richer men would give the poor an unfairly small
proportion of land, the policy, he added, having been to leave a large
amount undivided for newcomers and commons.[385] The argument, which was
sound, might perhaps have been considered sounder by the discontented,
had the governor himself, for example, not acquired by that time above
eighteen hundred acres, Saltonstall sixteen hundred, and Dudley
seventeen hundred.[386] After Winthrop had made a speech, and the
Reverend Mr. Cotton had “showed them that it was the Lord's order among
the Israelites to have all such businesses committed to the elders,” a
new vote was ordered and the magistrates were elected.[387]
Footnote 385:
J. Winthrop, _History_, vol. I, p. 181.
Footnote 386:
Adams, _Three Episodes_, vol. I, p. 365.
Footnote 387:
J. Winthrop, _History_, vol. I, p. 181.
It was evident that, if the little group of leaders, lay and
ecclesiastic, were to retain power permanently, in view of the spirit
evinced by the people, and the extremely rapid growth of the population,
it could be only by securing a firmer hold upon the body of magistrates
and the election of freemen. A few months previously, Cotton had
preached a sermon arguing that the magistrates, who were annually
elected under the charter, were entitled to be perpetually reëlected,
except for “just cause”; and he compared their rights to office with
those of a man in his freehold estate.[388] This suggestion seems to
have borne fruit something more than a year afterward, when, it having
been shown “from the word of God, etc., that the principal magistrates
ought to be for life,” it was voted that a council should be created, to
have such powers as the General Court should grant them, and not to be
subject to removal except for crimes or “other weighty cause.” This, of
course, was again a violation of the charter, and, like so much of the
reactionary legislation, was due to the direct influence of the
clergy.[389] Though Winthrop, Dudley, and Endicott were elected to the
new offices, the council was never granted any powers, and the plan
failed.[390]
Footnote 388:
_Ibid._, vol. I, p. 157.
Footnote 389:
R. C. Winthrop, _J. Winthrop_, vol. II, p. 271.
Footnote 390:
J. Winthrop, _History_, vol. I, p. 220; _Massachusetts Records_, vol.
I, pp. 167, 174, 195, 264.
Of somewhat more practical service, in view of the fact that church
membership was an indispensable qualification for the franchise, was the
law, passed at the same court, that no new churches could be organized
without the approbation of the magistrates and a majority of the elders
of the preëxisting churches, and that no man could become a freeman who
was not a member of a church so approved of. By this means a degree of
control, at least, could be maintained over the great numbers of
newcomers now arriving.
We do not wish to convey the impression that the leaders of the colony
were animated by mere love of power or a vulgar ambition, strong though
the former was in most of them. But the danger to the liberties of their
subjects was no less great because Winthrop and Cotton were wholly
convinced of the divine nature of their mission. It is too frequently
assumed that despotic acts are necessarily those of a self-conscious
despot; whereas, in most cases, they are merely the readiest means
employed for reaching ends which authority may think itself rightly
privileged, or morally bound, to attain. Charles and Laud were no less
certain than the rulers of Church and State in Massachusetts, that their
mandate was a heavenly one. Liberty cannot mean one thing in old England
and another in New, nor can intolerance be condoned in the one and
condemned in the other. The King and the Archbishop were no more closely
allied, nor more bent upon forcing their own will upon that of the
people, than were the civil and ecclesiastical powers of the little
American commonwealth, however worthy or unworthy the motives of each
may have been. Pride in the valiant work that the Massachusetts leaders
did in subduing the wilderness, and in the sacrifices that they made for
their religious beliefs, has tended to make their descendants, in the
words of the old English saw, “to their faults a little blind, and to
their virtues very kind”; but if the nations of the world are to grow in
mutual understanding and brotherly feeling, their histories must be
written from the standpoint of justice to all, and not from that of a
mistaken national piety.
We now come to the case of the first, and perhaps the most conspicuous,
individual who was to fall under the discipline of both Church and State
in New England. Roger Williams had arrived in Boston as early as 1631.
Added to a most winning nature and a personality that ever exerted a
charm over friends and enemies alike, he brought with him a reputation
for being a godly minister, and within a few months after his arrival,
was invited by the church at Salem to become their teacher. He had also,
apparently, within only a few weeks of his landing, been chosen to the
same office by the Boston congregation, but had refused to join with
them because they would not acknowledge themselves to be separated from
the Church of England.[391] He had also, thus early, declared his
doctrine that the power of the magistrates should be limited to civil
matters, and that they had no authority to punish the breach of the
Sabbath or other religious offenses.[392] For these reasons, the General
Court wrote a letter to Endicott, expostulating with the Salem church
for accepting Williams, which that church apparently ignored.[393] He
did not, however, remain long, but removed to Plymouth, where he stayed
preaching until again called to Salem in 1634.[394]
Footnote 391:
Letter to John Cotton, Jr., 1671 (_Narr. Club Pub._, vol. VI, p. 356).
Footnote 392:
J. Winthrop, _History_, vol. I, p. 63.
Footnote 393:
The evidence is somewhat conflicting. _Cf._ citations of authorities
in H. M. Dexter, _As to Roger Williams_ (Boston, 1876), p. 5.
Footnote 394:
Bradford, _Plymouth_, p. 310.
Meanwhile, he had not only so extended his doctrine of the separation of
church and state as to deny that a magistrate had power to require an
oath, but had added a new and, it is needless to say, fundamentally
dangerous doctrine for the legal foundation of the colony, in his
declaration that, the Indians being the true owners of the soil, the
King had had no right to grant a charter, and the colony should repent
of having received it. The authorities might, perhaps, fear the
expression of such opinions, and his subsequent banishment, the motives
for which have always been the subject of heated dispute from his own
day to this, may have been caused by his denial of the legal basis of
the colony, as much as by his theory of religious toleration. It was
without doubt the latter, however, which brought down upon him the
special hostility of the clergy. Winthrop, who like Bradford and
Winslow, had an affectionate regard for the young clergyman,
specifically stated that the ministers rendered their judgment “that he
who should obstinately maintain such opinions, whereby a church might
run into heresy, apostacy, or tyranny, and yet the civil magistrate
could not intermeddle,” should be removed.[395]
Footnote 395:
J. Winthrop, _History_, vol. I, p. 194.
The civil power was at once brought into play. Williams was cited to
appear, and the town of Salem was denied title to certain lands which it
claimed as its own, until it should discard its teacher.[396] Williams
then endeavored to have the Salem church separate from all the others,
and the congregation addressed a sharp letter of reproof to the
magistrates. The final triumph was, of course, on the side of the
established authorities. Williams, after what seems to have been a fair
trial, was ordered to be banished,[397] the decree being subsequently
revised to take effect in the spring, provided Williams would refrain
from attempting to spread his opinions, which, apparently, he was unable
to do. The authorities, having heard that he was planning to lead a
colony to Narragansett, and fearing that the “infection” would spread
from there throughout the churches, undertook to ship him back to
England; but he escaped in the middle of January, making his way through
the snow-filled forests to the safe confines and hospitable savages of
Rhode Island.[398]
Footnote 396:
_Ibid._, vol. I, p. 195.
Footnote 397:
_Massachusetts Records_, vol. I, p. 161.
Footnote 398:
J. Winthrop, _History_, vol. I, p. 209.
His subsequent prominence as the founder of that state, and his written
advocacy of the principle of toleration, have tended to overemphasize
the contemporary importance of the proceedings just described.[399] The
authorities had a fair basis for their action, on civil grounds alone;
and although the religious aspect undoubtedly entered largely into the
case, it marked, in that respect, no new departure in policy.[400] It
merely showed somewhat more clearly, perhaps, that, in any case which
threatened to weaken the established relations of church and state or to
question the right of the latter to require the most rigid conformity to
the doctrines and practices of the former, the magistrates and clergy
could be counted upon to act rigorously together. Although personally
popular, Williams had acquired few adherents who were willing to follow
him beyond a certain point in his struggle, and the victory of the court
created but a slight disturbance. The colony, however, in order to avoid
even the possibility of strife, had lost what it could ill afford to
spare—a mind of wider vision than its own.
Footnote 399:
Besides his works already referred to, his doctrine of religious
liberty found expression in _The Bloody Tenent of Persecution_, 1644,
and _The Bloody Tenent yet more Bloody_, 1652, reprinted as vols. III
and IV of the _Narr. Club Pub._
Footnote 400:
_Cf._, however, besides the standard histories, J. L. Diman, Preface
to _Narragansett Club Publications_, vol. II, pp. 1-8; and Dexter, _As
to Roger Williams_. The latter is strongly biased against Williams,
and contains some untenable views as to the founders' attitude toward
the charter, but is useful as citing almost all known references to
the case. It was critically reviewed by H. S. Burrage, _American
Historical Association Report_, 1899, vol. I, pp. 10-12.
If Williams's expulsion had caused no tumult, that was not to be true of
another case with which the authorities soon had to deal. Ann
Hutchinson, who had been a parishioner of John Cotton in England, had
come to Massachusetts with her husband, later followed by her
brother-in-law, John Wheelwright, and had been in Boston about two years
at the time of Williams's banishment. She had acquired a considerable
influence among the women, due more, perhaps, to her kindly spirit and
helpfulness in sickness, than to her brilliant mind, which seems to have
impressed itself upon many of the ablest men in the colony. The New
England of that day, as for long after, offered almost no opportunity
for the play of such a restless intellect as hers except upon religious
questions, and Mrs. Hutchinson was, in addition, a sincerely religious
woman. After some time, during which we hear nothing of her, she
appeared as holding Thursday meetings in her house for those women who
had been unable to attend church on the preceding Sunday, and to whom
she rehearsed the sermons preached. She soon passed on to comparing
those of various clergymen, and gradually evolved the doctrine that,
while Mr. Cotton and her brother-in-law preached a “Covenant of Grace,”
all of the others preached a “Covenant of Works”—a theological
distinction which has often been considered so baffling as to elude
understanding. Even at the time, Winthrop wrote that “no man could tell
(except some few, who knew the bottom of the matter) where any
difference was.”[401] It may be inferred, however, that by a “Covenant
of Grace” she meant a religion based upon a direct revelation in the
individual soul of God's grace and love, while by a “Covenant of Works”
was intended a religion founded upon a covenant between God as judge and
man as fallen, which men had merely to obey unquestioningly, as they
obeyed the civil law, and of which the minister was the official
interpreter.[402]
Footnote 401:
J. Winthrop, _History_, vol. I, p. 255.
Footnote 402:
The modern literature regarding the Antinomian controversy is large.
_Cf._ C. F. Adams, _Antinomianism in the Colony of Massachusetts Bay_;
Prince Society, Boston, 1894; also his _Three Episodes_, vols. I, pp.
363, and II, 533-81. A very lucid account is given by R. N. Jones,
_The Quakers in the American Colonies_ (London, 1911), pp. 4-25.
It is needless to point out that the latter accorded with the whole
doctrine and polity of the Massachusetts church and state, while the
former would have undermined both as constituted. To many, the preaching
of a religion of love, as contrasted with the harsh tenets of the
established doctrine of law and judgment, brought a joy and peace they
had sought in vain in the latter, and Mrs. Hutchinson's followers grew
rapidly in number. Among them were included Mr. Cotton himself,—who,
however, drew back in the succeeding turmoil,—and the new young Governor
of the colony, Sir Harry Vane.
Vane, as yet but twenty-three years old, high-born and brilliant, but
immature, had arrived in the autumn of 1635 in the ship that brought the
Reverend Hugh Peter and John Winthrop, Jr. He had come over, as had the
younger Winthrop, in connection with the plantation project of Lords
Say, Brook, and others; but he remained in Boston, and was soon admitted
a member of Cotton's church. During the preceding years there had been
from time to time various disagreements between Winthrop and Dudley,
both of whom had occupied the office of governor, the troubles arising
largely from Dudley's touchy and overbearing nature. Reconciliations had
been effected by the kindly and patient Winthrop, and the petty quarrels
are of practically no historical importance, save in that the people had
taken sides to a certain extent. Vane and Peter had been but a few
months in the colony, when, for reasons best known to themselves, they
undertook to arrange a meeting between Governor Haynes, the two
ex-governors, the three clergymen, Cotton, Hooker, and Wilson, and
themselves. The discussion finally centred upon whether the mildness of
Winthrop or the severity of the fanatical Dudley was the wiser in
governing the colony. The question, as usual, was referred to the
ministers for their opinion, who gave it in favor of “strict discipline”
for the honor and safety of the gospel. Whereupon, Winthrop acknowledged
that he had been too lenient, and promised a stricter course thereafter,
and Massachusetts took one more step backward.[403] The following spring
Vane was elected governor.
Footnote 403:
J. Winthrop, _History_, vol. I, pp. 211 _ff._
Meanwhile, Mrs. Hutchinson had won over practically all the Boston
church, except Wilson, Winthrop, and a few others, who, however, were
strong enough to defeat the proposal to install Wheelwright as
teacher.[404] The strife was gradually spreading, and Vane, who had
allied himself with the Hutchinson party, made a flimsy excuse to resign
the governorship. The Boston church and the Court both refused to
consider his reasons valid, and the resignation was withdrawn. A
conference of the ministers, called by the Court, was held in December,
to try to compose the differences, but accomplished nothing except to
increase the bitter feeling between the parties. A day of fasting was
proclaimed, and although Wheelwright had removed to Mt. Wollaston, he
attended the Boston church on that occasion, and preached his famous
“fast-day sermon.”[405] For expressions contained in it, as falsely
interpreted by the authorities, he was declared by the Court to have
been guilty of contempt and sedition, the same body condemning Stephen
Greensmith to a fine of £40 for saying that all the ministers, except
Cotton, Wheelwright, and, possibly, Hooker, taught a covenant of
works.[406]
Footnote 404:
_Ibid._, vol. I, pp. 241 _ff._
Footnote 405:
It is reprinted by C. H. Bell, _John Wheelwright_ (Prince Society,
Boston, 1876), pp. 153 _ff._
Footnote 406:
_Massachusetts Records_, vol. I, p. 189.
Wheelwright having next been summoned to appear before the General
Court, a petition was presented, signed by nearly all the members of the
Boston church, asking that the hearings should be open to freemen, and
that cases of conscience might be first dealt with by the churches.[407]
This was declared to be “a groundless and presumptuous act.”
Wheelwright's examination was begun in private, and the authorities
stated that it would proceed _ex officio_. This raised loud complaints
among the people, who avowed that it was but one of those High
Commission proceedings which they had left England to escape.
Wheelwright refused to answer the questions put, and the hearings were
finally allowed to be open. The clergy were then asked by the Court
whether they did teach a covenant of works. All but Cotton replied in
the affirmative, and the verdict was thus foreshadowed. Nevertheless, it
took two days of further struggling, again behind closed doors, before
the sentence of sedition and contempt could be agreed to, and the party
of the priests and magistrates secure their victory.[408] A petition,
denying that any of Wheelwright's utterances had been seditious, was
presented to the Court, signed by sixty members of the Boston church,
for which they were rebuked by Winthrop.[409]
Footnote 407:
J. Winthrop, _History_, vol. I, p. 256.
Footnote 408:
Adams, _Three Episodes_, vol. I, pp. 444 _f._
Footnote 409:
Adams, _Antinomianism_, pp. 133 _ff._; Winthrop, _History_, vol. I,
pp. 183 _f._
The majority of the Court, however, evidently feared the next election,
and secured the passage of a resolution requiring that the elections
should be held at Newtown, and not, as had always been customary, at
Boston.[410] At the election, in May, Vane and Winthrop were the
opposing leaders, and although the former attempted some ill-judged
political manœuvres, the ecclesiastical party was wholly successful.
Winthrop was elected governor, Dudley deputy—governor, and Endicott,
apparently as a reward for his share in the proceedings, was made a
member of the unconstitutional life council, while all the Boston
Antinomians were defeated for the magistracy. When, in answer to this,
that town next day returned Vane, Coddington, and Hoffe as deputies, the
Court “found a means to send them home again,” claiming that two of the
Boston freemen had not been notified of the election. The next morning,
Boston held a new election, and returned the same deputies, and “the
court not finding how they might reject them, they were admitted.”[411]
Footnote 410:
_Massachusetts Records_, vol. I, p. 191.
Footnote 411:
_Ibid._, vol. I, pp. 195 _ff._; J. Winthrop, _History_, vol. I, pp.
261 _ff._
The victory over Boston, however, was evidently not considered
sufficient, and the Court proceeded to pass an immigration law, to the
effect that no town could receive any person for a longer time than
three weeks without permission of one of the council or two of the
magistrates. In other words, no Englishman could settle in Massachusetts
without personal permission from Winthrop, Dudley, or Endicott, or two
of their eight associates. The law had evidently been framed to prevent
any accession to the ranks of the Hutchinson party, and was promptly put
into execution on the arrival of a considerable body of newcomers,
including a brother of Mrs. Hutchinson, who were forced to leave the
colony after having reached its shores.[412] Feeling naturally ran high,
and Winthrop defended, while Vane attacked, the validity and justice of
such an enactment.[413] With the law already alluded to, placing the
whole control of the franchise in the hands of the magistrates and the
clergy, and with this new law, which gave the right of admission to the
colony wholly to the former, the control of the oligarchy would seem to
have been fairly complete.
Footnote 412:
_Ibid._, p. 278.
Footnote 413:
The documents are given in the Hutchinson _Papers_, vol. I, pp.
79-114.
The Court, however, even as constituted as a result of the May election,
did not move rapidly enough in the prosecution of Wheelwright, and was
summarily dissolved in September. Sixteen members were dropped, and the
new Court, comprising forty-two members, contained twenty-two new
names.[414] Even this purge was not enough, and two deputies were
expelled, one for declaring that the Boston petition was lawful, and the
other for declaring that he believed Wheelwright was innocent and was
being persecuted for the truth.
Footnote 414:
_Massachusetts Records_, vol. I, pp. 204, 205.
Meanwhile, Vane had returned to England, and a synod of all the clergy
had met and declared that there were eighty-two erroneous or blasphemous
opinions involved in the controversy.[415] Mr. Cotton, who had no taste
for that banishment which he claimed was no hardship, now went over to
what was evidently to be the winning side. With a broader mind and wider
vision than any of the other clergy of the colony, he had not the
courage to stand alone, beyond a certain point, against their unanimity
in intolerance. The higher promptings of his nature were crushed by the
united voice of the priesthood, as Winthrop's had been so short a time
before, and the noblest of the colony's leaders, lay and clerical, from
that time tended to sink to the lower level of their fellows.
Footnote 415:
They are given in full by Adams, _Antinomianism_, pp. 95-124. J.
Winthrop, _History_, vol. I, pp. 284 _ff._, gives an account of the
meeting, but mentions only 80.
Events now moved more swiftly. At the November Court, Wheelwright was
sentenced to be disfranchised and banished, and was refused the
privilege of an appeal to England.[416] He was given fourteen days in
which to settle his affairs, and at the beginning of winter was on his
way to New Hampshire. One of the expelled deputies was disfranchised and
threatened with banishment should he “speake anything to disturbe the
publike peace.” Another was also disfranchised and banished. Two weeks
later, seven of the signers of the petition were disfranchised, and ten
more, who acknowledged their “sin” in having signed, were pardoned. The
following week, seventy-five men, in the towns of Boston, Salem,
Newbury, Roxbury, Ipswich, and Charlestown, were condemned to have all
their arms and ammunition taken from them unless they would likewise
acknowledge their “sin.” A law was passed that any one who should
“defame” any Magistrate or Court, or any of their acts or proceedings,
should be fined, imprisoned, disfranchised, or banished.[417]
Footnote 416:
_Massachusetts Records_, vol. I, p. 207; J. Winthrop, _History_, vol.
I, p. 294.
Footnote 417:
_Massachusetts Records_, vol. I, pp. 207-13.
In the meantime, Mrs. Hutchinson had been brought to trial. When, at its
beginning, she asked what law had been broken, the Court answered, “the
fifth commandment,” which enjoined her to honor father and mother,
whereas she had brought reproach upon the “fathers of the
commonwealth.”[418] When the trial was over, and the sentence given that
she should be “banished from out of our jurisdiction as being a woman
not fit for our society,” she said, “I desire to know wherefore I am
banished.” “Say no more,” answered the Governor; “the Court knows
wherefore and is satisfied.”
Footnote 418:
Adams, _Antinomianism_, pp. 165, 237. Two reports of the trial are
given in that volume, pp. 157-284.
It was evident now that no voice could be raised in criticism of any
acts of the civil or ecclesiastical authorities, and that the minds and
lives of the ten thousand or more inhabitants of Massachusetts had come
wholly under the control of their rulers. One man, who with a group of
people undertook to organize a church without having secured the
permission of the magistrates and clergy, was fined £20 and imprisoned
“during the pleasure of Court.” Hugh Buet, being found guilty of
“heresy,” was condemned to leave the colony within three weeks or be
hanged. Two others were imprisoned for criticizing the government and
clergy; and, for the same offense, Katherine Finch was ordered to be
whipped.[419] In 1635, a law had been passed making church attendance
compulsory for all inhabitants, under pain of fine and imprisonment.
Three years later, it was enacted that every resident, whether a freeman
and church member or not, should be taxed for the support of the
ministers. In the Old World, the churches had been satisfied with
excommunication, but in Massachusetts, a law was now passed that, if any
person was excommunicated by the church, he must endeavor to have
himself restored within six months, under penalty of “fine,
imprisonment, banishment, or further.”[420] That ominous “further” was
evidently intended to mean death, and it is difficult to conceive of a
measure more conducive to the rearing of a race of conforming
hypocrites.
Footnote 419:
_Massachusetts Records_, vol. I, pp. 252, 312, 262, 269, 234.
Footnote 420:
_Ibid._, pp. 140, 240, 242.
The policy so ruthlessly followed by the leaders can hardly be excused
by attributing it to the spirit of the age or to the necessity of
maintaining civil order. They were all familiar with the example of
religious toleration in Holland; and in neither Plymouth, Rhode Island,
nor Connecticut was church membership a legal requisite for the
franchise. Moreover, Massachusetts, only a few years later, in annexing
the northern settlements, permitted their inhabitants to vote without
being church members, although denying that privilege to her own
citizens.
Criticism of the leaders' actions was severe and constant, even from
their best friends in England. The real father of the colony, the
Reverend John White, wrote to Winthrop in alarm, saying that he desired
him “to have an eye to one thinge, that you fall not into that evill
abroad, which you labored to avoyd at home, to binde all men to the same
tenets and practise.” Stansby, in a letter to the Reverend Mr. Wilson,
complained that, on account of their strictness, over one half of the
people were not admitted to church membership, and that this would do
them much harm. Stephen Winthrop, temporarily in London, sent home word
to his brother John, that “here is great complaint against us for our
severity against Anabaptists. It doth discourage any people from coming
to us for fear they should be banished if they dissent from us in
opinion.” Sir George Downing, a cousin of the younger Winthrop, in a
letter retailing English opinion of the colony, speaks of that “law of
banishing for conscience, which makes us stinke everywhere.”[421]
Footnote 421:
_Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll._, Series V, vol. I, p. 252; Series IV, vol.
VII, p. 11; Series V, vol. VIII, p. 200; Series IV, vol. VI, p. 537.
Nor must the standpoint of the English citizen be neglected. England's
American possessions, in spite of monopolies and charters, were coming
more and more to be looked upon as the heritage of the English people,
as the land of opportunity for those who fell by the wayside in life's
race at home, as well as for religious exiles. Yet here was one of the
best parts of the whole continent being monopolized by a band of people
who rejected, oppressed, and banished others, or at the least deprived
them of all political rights, not because they were undesirable
citizens, not because they were immoral, but because they refused to
conform to the peculiar church polity and doctrine, neither Church of
England nor English Puritan, which the first settlers had evolved in the
American wilderness.
Winthrop, in his controversy with Vane over the immigration law, and
apologist historians since, have made much of the possible technical
rights under the charter possessed by the company members, and their
successors in perpetuity, to choose their fellow citizens according to
any standard, however fanatical, however unjust, of which they might
approve. These rights were questionable, and the controversy has usually
ignored those of the potential English colonist at home. But our
interest does not lie in legal technicalities: it is concerned with the
influences that moulded New England; and from that standpoint, we can
only point to the results of the policy of the first leaders and to its
baneful effects. As we noted above, Winthrop's finer impulses had been
permanently checked, while Cotton, who might have made a noble leader,
was now content to follow natures lower than his own. The voices that
had pleaded for religious toleration, for civil liberty, and for a
religion of love, were silenced. The intellectual life of the colony
ceased to be troubled and entered into peace, but it was the peace of
death. The struggle for civil freedom did, indeed, go on, and in that
alone lay the sole contribution of the colony to the cause of human
progress; for the almost complete suppression of free speech and free
inquiry surrendered the intellectual life of Massachusetts to the more
and more benumbing influence of a steadily narrowing theology.[422] For
two centuries, from the day that Winthrop pronounced that verdict, “the
Court knows wherefore and is satisfied,” the social and religious life
of New England as a whole conformed to the rigid lines of Calvinism in
its harshest and least attractive aspects. In England, Puritanism had
been grafted upon a national stock of abundant sturdiness and health. In
the forests of America, uncultured and ungrafted, the wild fruit grew
steadily more gnarled and bitter.
Footnote 422:
_Cf._ C.F. Adams, _Massachusetts, its Historians and its History_;
Boston, 1898.
CHAPTER VIII
THE GROWTH OF A FRONTIER
In the first chapter we called attention to the importance of the
Appalachian barrier in long confining the process of colonizing within
bounds, and preventing that wide dispersion which rendered so precarious
the hold of France upon its far larger American empire. The relation of
area to barrier, in that section chosen by the English, was, indeed,
almost ideal for the formation of colonies, and, subsequently, of a
nation through their union. While the mountains kept the original
settlements within bounds until their population and institutions had
both had opportunity to develop and take strong root, the extent of the
continental mass behind, simple in its physiographic features, was
sufficient for the growth of almost unlimited numbers and a unified
state, and, so, for the effective influence upon the world of whatever
form of culture might there arise. The West Indian colonies, on the
other hand, in spite of their rapid growth, could not fail, eventually,
to become politically unimportant, merely from their limited area and
resulting limited population. Barbadoes, for example, comprised only one
hundred and sixty-six square miles, the equivalent of one seventh of the
land-surface of Rhode Island, or one fiftieth of that of Massachusetts.
Within a century from its settlement, it contained no ungranted or
uncultivated land—a condition which must have been approximated long
before.[423] The possibility of growth, beyond a certain point, was,
therefore, lacking in the islands, and, from the same cause, their
development was to a great extent uninfluenced by another factor, which
was of marked importance in the continental colonies and the nation for
two centuries and a half. This factor was the constantly advancing
frontier, with its radical reactions upon the thought and institutions
of the also constantly expanding older settlements.
Footnote 423:
Worsley to Board of Trade, cited by Pitman, _Development of British W.
I._, p. 70.
American political thought has been moulded, to a very great extent, by
the two ideals, of unrestricted competition in exploiting the resources
of the continent, and of a democracy fostered by the semi-isolated and
self-reliant life of the frontier, with its comparative equality of
opportunity and of economic status. Both these ideals, until a recent
period, were developed by the presence of free land, in which they had
largely had their origin.[424] As we have already pointed out, land in
New England, in the earliest period, was to be obtained without either
purchase price or rent, to which fact, perhaps, had been due the large
non-Puritan immigration that mingled with the religious stream from 1630
to 1640.
Footnote 424:
_Cf._ F. J. Turner, “Social Forces in American History”; _Magazine of
History_, vol. XIII, p. 117.
It is also to the influence of the frontier that the American intellect
owes some of its most marked characteristics: its restlessness, its
preoccupation with the practical, its lack of interest in the æsthetic
and philosophical, its desire for ends and neglect of means, its
preference of cleverness to training, its self-confidence, its
individualism, and its extreme provinciality. The influence, moreover,
has been a continuing one, for almost every decade in American history,
until 1890, witnessed the creation of a new frontier, which lay just a
little beyond the settled regions, and reacted upon them.[425]
Footnote 425:
_Cf._ the very suggestive article by F. J. Turner, “The Significance
of the Frontier in American History,” _Proceedings of State Historical
Society of Wisconsin_, 1894, pp. 79-112.
In describing the first expansion of the New England frontier,
therefore, we are concerned with the earliest manifestation of one of
the most potent forces in American history. The fringe of little
settlements along the coast had been, indeed, the frontier of Europe;
but with the planting of settlements farther inland, an American
frontier came into existence, to react upon what, with the rapid
movement of time characteristic of a new country, soon became the
conservative, older East. That frontier has always been the refuge of
the restless and the discontented, of those who have desired a freer, if
not greater, economic opportunity, as well as of those who have been
unable to adjust themselves to the prosaic life of a settled community,
with its penalties of one sort or another for such as will not yield at
least lip-service to its social, religious, or political beliefs. In
Massachusetts there was no more room—if, indeed, there were as much—for
those who disagreed with the authorities in any particular, than there
had been at home; and those who came to that colony in the hope of
enjoying any larger degree of religious toleration or civil liberty than
in England were promptly disillusioned. About the time of the last
events described in the preceding chapter, the prospects for freedom of
thought or action must have looked as dark to the dwellers in
Massachusetts not wholly in sympathy with the rulers' policy, as it had
looked to those same rulers in the old country, when they met at the
Earl of Lincoln's, and decided to remove to the wilderness. The
opposition having become the government, it was now forcing a new
opposition to follow the same course, involuntarily by banishment or
voluntarily by free migration. Before continuing the story of that
movement, however, we must allude briefly to that portion of the
European frontier which lay northward of the Puritan settlements, and
which, like them, had been formed by immigration from the Old World.
During the period we are now discussing, the history of Maine was the
story of confused grants of territory and of the planting of small
isolated farming, fishing, and trading communities. The existence led by
the inhabitants, in their solitary shacks or little villages, was that
of a rough border life in which the monotony of the hard, bitter
winters, and the routine of planting, fishing, or bargaining for furs,
was punctuated by an occasional murder among themselves, and by
quarrels, sometimes bloody, with the Indians and the French.
In 1629, the Province of Maine, as granted to Mason and Gorges seven
years previously, was divided between them, Mason accepting as his share
that portion lying between the Merrimac and the Piscataqua,—which
received the name of New Hampshire,—while Gorges retained the balance,
extending from the Piscataqua to the Kennebec.[426] Mention has
previously been made of the small beginnings at Pemaquid, Sheepscot, and
Monhegan to the eastward, and of Portsmouth and Dover in what now became
Mason's particular province. The settlements next planted, at Richmond's
Island, Pejebscot, around Casco Bay, and elsewhere, were the work of
servants for English merchants or of individual emigrants, and were
hampered by the conflicting claims arising from the carelessly drawn
patents.[427] Gorges himself became interested in a new attempt to
colonize, and his nephew, William, was sent over as governor of a little
colony planted at York, which later was to become the subject of one of
those grandiose schemes of government to which the old knight was so
uncontrollably addicted.[428] All of these early plantings, however,
were of slight historical importance.
Footnote 426:
_Farnham Papers_ (Maine Historical Society, Portland, 1901), vol. I,
pp. 96 _ff._ For the numerous grants of this period, _cf._ H. S.
Burrage, _Colonial Maine_, pp. 197-226.
Footnote 427:
The patents may be found in the _Farnham Papers_, _passim_. The most
accurate narrative account is that of Burrage, _Colonial Maine_. The
Trelawney and Cammack patents, and an extremely valuable
correspondence relating to conditions at this time, are in the
_Trelawney Papers_; Maine Historical Society, 1884. _Cf._ also, J. P.
Baxter, _George Cleeve of Casco Bay_ (Gorges Society, Portland, 1885),
pp. 27 _ff._
Footnote 428:
_Farnham Papers_, vol. I, p. 159; Gorges, _Briefe Narration_, p. 79;
Burrage, _Colonial Maine_, pp. 216 _ff._
Although settlement was proceeding slowly and painfully, the vast
forests and many rivers of the province offered a rich field for the
exploitation of the fur trade, which was the main object of the French
in the north, and one of the principal resources of the English
settlements as well. The traffic, indeed, had been the means by which
the Plymouth Pilgrims had bought their freedom from their merchant
partners, and we have already noted that colony's activities on the
Kennebec. A tragic incident that occurred at their little post on that
stream, located at what is now Augusta, is of interest mainly as
revealing the aggressive attitude which was later to become the settled
policy of the Massachusetts colony in relation to its neighbors. Early
in 1634, one Hocking, a fellow employed in an enterprise of Lords Say,
Brook, and others, on the Piscataqua, tried to poach upon the Pilgrims'
patented lands, and even to pass the trading station, in order to
intercept the Indians carrying their furs. The Pilgrims' agents acted
with restraint; but in the course of the dispute, Hocking wantonly
killed one of their men; whereupon a companion of the slain man, “that
loved him well,” as Bradford records, shot Hocking dead.[429]
Footnote 429:
Bradford, _Plymouth_, p. 317.
Although the Plymouth men had been entirely in the right, a garbled
version of the affair was sent to England and also to Massachusetts.
Needless to point out, that colony had absolutely no jurisdiction
whatever in the quarrel, which had occurred far outside its bounds, and
not even in the unclaimed wilderness, but within the legal limits of its
older neighbor. Nevertheless, the authorities at Boston arrested John
Alden, one of the Plymouth magistrates, who happened to be there at the
moment, and who had been at the Kennebec when the affray occurred.[430]
This was naturally resented, even by the peace-loving Pilgrims, and
letters requesting Alden's release were dispatched by the Plymouth
government to Dudley. One of these, at least, that governor tried to
suppress, but “Captaine Standish requiring an answer thereof publickly
in the courte,” he was forced to produce it.[431] Alden was released,
but Standish, who had been the bearer of the letter, was bound over to
appear at the next Massachusetts court, to testify to the Pilgrims'
patent. Finally, after Winslow and Bradford themselves had gone to
Boston and conferred with Winthrop, the matter was adjusted, and Dudley
and Winthrop wrote to the Lords in England the true version of the
murder; but it was not likely that the other settlements would soon
forget the high-handed proceedings of the Bay Colony in an affair so
obviously beyond its jurisdiction.[432]
Footnote 430:
J. Winthrop, _History_, vol. I, p. 156; _Massachusetts Records_, vol.
I, p. 119.
Footnote 431:
Dudley's reply, in Bradford, _Plymouth_, p. 320.
Footnote 432:
J. Winthrop, _History_, vol. I, pp. 162, 174.
But the trading post on the Kennebec was not the sole concern of the
Pilgrims in Maine, nor was that province the scene merely of contentions
arising from conflicting English land-grants, or from rival colonial
jurisdictions. It had been the stage on which the curtain had first
risen in the struggle for empire between England and France, and was now
to witness new episodes in that long drama. Still farther north the
contest had recently become acute. Sir William Alexander, by virtue of
an English grant, had claimed a large portion of French America, and Sir
William Kirk had seized Port Royal and Quebec. By the treaty of St.
Germain, however, in 1632, England agreed to restore “all places
occupied in New France, Acadia, and Canada by the subjects of the King
of Great Britain,” although the boundaries of those vaguely localized
regions were not specified, and remained matters for contention, which
meant raiding and Indian warfare, for over a century to come.[433]
Footnote 433:
The section of the treaty relating to America is in the _Farnham
Papers_, vol. I, p. 176.
Meanwhile, several more places had been occupied by the Pilgrims and
those associated with the Plymouth colony. In 1630, a “very profane
young man,” Edward Ashley by name, had started a trading post on the
Penobscot, which the Pilgrims feared might injure their fur business on
the Kennebec.[434] In spite of scruples, therefore, they joined with
Ashley, and that person having been drowned at sea, after being released
from the Fleet prison in London, they came into sole possession.[435]
They did not long enjoy it in peace, however, for the following year the
French descended upon them and carried away all their goods, valued at
nearly £500, leaving word with the agents that “some of the Isle of Rey
gentlemen had been there.” Allerton, who had broken with the Pilgrims,
had also begun to trade, at Machias; and, a couple of years later,
suffered in like manner from the French, who killed two of his men, and
carried off all the others, as well as the whole stock of goods, which,
as Bradford says “was the end of that projecte.”[436]
Footnote 434:
Bradford, _Plymouth_, pp. 258 _ff._
Footnote 435:
_Acts Privy Council, Colonial_, vol. I, p. 172; Bradford, _Plymouth_,
p. 275.
Footnote 436:
Bradford, _Plymouth_, pp. 293 _f._; J. Winthrop, _History_, vol. I,
pp. 139, 184.
In spite of their own heavy loss, the Pilgrims had clung to the
Penobscot until, in 1635, d'Aulnay, acting under orders from the French
King to clear the coast of the English as far as Pemaquid, seized the
post, and shipped the local agents back to Plymouth. The Pilgrims hired
a vessel, and dispatched an armed force to try to regain possession;
but, owing to the conduct of the man whom they had engaged to effect the
enterprise, it failed miserably, and they merely entailed upon
themselves a heavy additional loss. Massachusetts, when called upon for
help, though she realized the danger to herself from the increasing
aggressiveness of the French, refused aid unless the infinitely poorer
Plymouth colony would bear the entire expense. That colony was,
therefore, obliged to desist, and Bradford bitterly complained that not
only did the Bay people thus do nothing to defend the common frontier,
but that, owing to their cupidity, they even sold food and ammunition to
the French, and so increased the menace both from them and their Indian
allies.[437]
Footnote 437:
Bradford, _Plymouth_, pp. 332 _ff._; J. Winthrop, _History_, vol. I,
pp. 198, 200, 246; _Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll._, Series III, vol. VIII, p.
192; _Massachusetts Records_, vol. I, pp. 160 _f._
In Mason's province of New Hampshire, settlement, though more
peaceful, was also proceeding but slowly beyond the Dover and
Portsmouth plantations already noted. As the settlers of those two
places were Episcopalians, and as an opportunity was offered to buy
out the Hilton interest in the former, the Massachusetts leaders urged
some of their friends in England to acquire it, with the result that
Lords Say and Brook, Sir Richard Saltonstall, and others came into
possession, and sent out additional colonists.[438] This pouring of
new wine into the old Dover bottle produced a series of explosions,
which subsequently prepared the way for annexation by Massachusetts.
Mason died in 1635, and bequeathed his province to his family.[439]
Two years later occurred the Antinomian controversy in Massachusetts,
and the expulsion of Wheelwright, whom, when discussing that episode,
we left on his way to New Hampshire. He succeeded in making the winter
trip to the settlements on the Piscataqua, and the following spring,
with a few associates and the help of his new hosts, he founded the
town of Exeter, the inhabitants entering into a written compact for
their self-government.[440] That the Massachusetts authorities would
have preferred that he should die alone in the winter's snow is hardly
a charitable supposition; but just what they did wish for is
uncertain; for they wrote a letter of remonstrance to the New
Hampshire people, saying that they “looked at it as an unneighborly
part” that they should help any one expelled by themselves.[441]
Footnote 438:
_New Hampshire Provincial Papers_ (Concord, 1867), vol. I, p. 157.
Footnote 439:
C. W. Tuttle, _Captain John Mason_; Prince Society, Boston, 1887. The
will and notes are on pp. 391-408.
Footnote 440:
_New Hampshire Provincial Papers_, vol. I, pp. 131 _f._ The Indian
deed, formerly thought to have been obtained by Wheelwright for the
land, is now generally considered spurious. _Ibid._, pp. 136 _f._
_Cf._, however, Bell (_John Wheelwright_, pp. 79 _ff._), who contends
that it was genuine.
Footnote 441:
J. Winthrop, _History_, vol. I, p. 350.
One of these northern towns, from its first settlement, had been
considered by Massachusetts as under its own jurisdiction. In March,
1637, the General Court had ordered that a plantation should be started
at Wenicunnett,—the name being later changed to Hampton,—a little more
than three miles north of the Merrimac.[442] It was thus slightly
outside of the bounds of the patent, if that were construed, as it had
been construed to that time, to include only such land north of the
river as lay within three miles of it.[443] The project may mark,
however, the first tentative step toward the colony's later, and wholly
unwarranted, interpretation of that instrument, so as to include all the
territory lying south of a line drawn due east from a point three miles
north of the most northerly part of that stream, to the ocean, thus
including practically all of New Hampshire and a large part of Maine.
About a year and a half after the “bound house” was built, a group of
colonists went to take possession of the new site. The Exeter men at
once objected to this encroachment of Massachusetts on their
neighborhood; but the General Court replied that the new settlement was
within their patent, and that they looked upon the protest as “against
good neighborhood, religion and common honesty.” They did, however,
quietly send out a surveying party, and having found that the part above
Pennacook was north of the line of 43½ degrees, they phrased a new
answer to Exeter's renewed protest, saying that, while they relinquished
none of their rights, nevertheless, as the Exeter men did not profess to
claim anything which might fall within the Massachusetts patent, the
matter would be allowed to rest. The way was thus left open for future
aggression, and the Court immediately proceeded to erect the new
settlement into a legal town.[444]
Footnote 442:
_Massachusetts Records_, vol. I, pp. 167, 271; J. Dow, _History of
Town of Hampton_ (Salem, 1893), vol I, pp. 7 _f._
Footnote 443:
It is noteworthy that in 1633, in a letter to Secretary Coke, Emanuel
Downing asked that the charter limits be extended a little to the
north, where were the best firs and timber. _Cal. State Pap., Col.,
1675-76_, p. 74.
Footnote 444:
J. Winthrop, _History_, vol. I, pp. 349, 365; _Massachusetts Records_,
vol. I, p. 259.
The frontier north of Massachusetts had thus, for the most part, come
into being without any action on her part, except in the two settlements
last noted. Owing to the location between the French and English, and
the uncompromising geographic factors of soil and climate, the vast
forested area, comprising over two thirds of all New England, increased
but little in population throughout the century; and by 1700 New
Hampshire had but six thousand souls, or less than that of the Bay
Colony at the time that Wheelwright left it. The northern provinces,
unhappily for themselves, were destined to play the part of buffer
states between the French, with their savage allies, and the more safely
located colonies in the south.
In tracing the foundations of the latter, we find the influence of
Massachusetts far more potent, for they were being laid mainly by men
who found scant room in that increasingly reactionary commonwealth. The
founders of Rhode Island and Connecticut alike condemned the religious
and political policy that the Bay Colony had now definitely made its
own; and the more democratic and tolerant forms of government, which
developed in the two former, “represented more nearly the principles
which underlie the government of the United States to-day than any other
of the British colonies.”[445] The seeds of both political and religious
liberty had been brought to America by the Massachusetts colonists; but
the leaders, partly from a dread of losing their own influence, and
partly from a genuine fear of noxious weeds, had done their best to
interfere with their growth. The founders of Rhode Island and
Connecticut, with less desire for personal power, and greater courage as
to tares in the wheat, watered and nursed the seeds of liberty, which
bore an abundant harvest. In Rhode Island, indeed, the weeds flourished
riotously; but the faith of the founders was justified in both colonies,
and their commonwealths marched with Holland at the head of those
struggling for human freedom, while England and Massachusetts yet lagged
and nagged.
Footnote 445:
C. M. Andrews, _The Colonial Period_ (New York, 1912), p. 28.
The lands around Narragansett Bay had been known for some time to be
attractive as sites for colonizing, when Williams made his way thither
after his banishment, in the winter of 1636. In spite of frequent
trading with the Indians, however, only one settler had as yet located
there permanently. William Blackstone, who had left England because he
disliked the tyranny of the Lord-bishops, and who had, as we have seen,
an equal aversion for that of the Lord-brethren, had quietly left his
plantation in Massachusetts, and betaken himself to the wilderness north
of Providence.[446] A lover at once of peace, of books, and of freedom,
there is something singularly attractive in his little known
personality. He called his new home “Study Hill”; and there in his
orchard grew the first “yellow sweetings” ever known, which, later, when
he occasionally preached to the newcomers, he handed around, “to
encourage his younger hearers.”
Footnote 446:
Lechford, _Plain Dealing_, p. 97. _Cf._ Adams, _Three Episodes_, vol.
I, p. 328 _n._ Some time before Blackstone settled, Winter,
Trelawney's agent in Maine, thought of settling about Narragansett,
and claimed that he had Warwick's permission to plant a colony.
_Trelawney Papers_, vol. I, p. 20.
Thus, while, owing to the great services Williams was to render the
colony, he is entitled to the name of its founder, he was not its first
settler, nor was the little band that planted Providence with him in
1636 the only one to lay the foundations of the future commonwealth. Nor
had he himself, apparently, any intention of doing so. “It pleased the
most high,” he wrote, many years afterward, “to direct my steps into
this Bay, by the loving private advice of that very honored soul Mr.
John Winthrop the Grandfather, who, though he was carried with the
stream for my banishment, yet he personally and tenderly loved me to his
last breath. It is not true, that I was imployed by any, made covenant
with any, was supplied by any, or desired any to come with me into these
parts.”[447] The others came, however, and the leading idea of the
settlement was reiterated four years later in the proposals for a form
of government, when the “arbitrators” noted that they agreed “as
formerly hath bin the liberties of the town, so still, to hould forth
liberty of conscience.”[448]
Footnote 447:
Williams's answer to the charges of Harris, in Rider, _Rhode Island
Tracts_, No. 14 (Providence, 1888), p. 53. But Williams's statements
are often contradictory.
Footnote 448:
_R. I. Records_ (Providence, 1856), vol. I, pp. 14, 28.
In 1638, another group, of eighteen persons, including William
Coddington, settled the town of Portsmouth; and in the following year,
that little hamlet planted an offshoot at Newport, while a few
individuals from both Providence and Portsmouth organized Warwick.[449]
These four towns were absolutely independent of each other, and of any
superior government of any sort, except England. Although Newport and
Portsmouth partially combined in 1640, it was not until seven years
later, when the charter of 1644 finally went into effect, that there was
any colony of Rhode Island, or a united government over the several
settlements.[450] It thus offered a great contrast to the Massachusetts
colony, in which the towns were the creatures of the General Court; and
it was this extreme looseness of organization, combined with religious
toleration, which formed the leading characteristic of the Rhode Island
political experiment. Although the settlers at Providence had signed an
agreement to unite for purposes of government, there were no town
officers, and practically no organization, until four years later. The
agreement was merely to yield obedience to such orders “as shall be made
for public good of the body in an orderly way, by the major consent of
the present inhabitants, masters of families, incorporated together in a
Towne fellowship, and others whom they shall admit unto them only in
civil things.” These masters of families met once a fortnight, discussed
their common affairs, and decided them by majority vote.[451] The
government was thus almost a pure democracy, only women, minors, and
bachelors being excluded. Even when the towns were united, and a more
elaborate governmental machinery was set up, the extremely democratic
trend of thought was evidenced in the remarkable provision that the
General Assembly could not initiate legislation, but that laws were
first to be considered in each town, and that only after all four had
considered them, were they to be sent to be acted upon by the Assembly,
all legislative initiative thus being retained in the hands of the
people.[452]
Footnote 449:
_Ibid._, pp. 45 _ff._, 87, 129.
Footnote 450:
_Ibid._, pp. 100 _ff._ _Cf._ Foster, _Town Government in Rhode
Island_, pp. 10 _ff._
Footnote 451:
_R. I. Records_, vol. I, p. 14; Letter from Williams to Winthrop;
_Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll._, Series IV, vol. VI, pp. 186 _f._
Footnote 452:
Foster, _Town Government_, p. 19.
With such looseness of organization, and extreme individuality of
thought and action, another characteristic was bound to be lack of
harmony, with frequent bickerings and disputes. These were soon in
evidence, and it was found also that a pure democracy and absence of
restraint were not compatible with orderly living. As the commonwealth
grew, the difficulties were met in the spirit of men who, believing in
liberty and toleration, were yet forced to make concessions to human
nature; while, on the other hand, the Massachusetts authorities met
their difficulties in the spirit of men who honestly disbelieved in
democracy and toleration, and whose concessions were forced by a growing
demand for things in which they had no faith. In Connecticut, also, the
leaders were, happily, on the side of that part of the people, important
in all the colonies, who were struggling upward toward a larger liberty,
and who, even in Massachusetts, were slowly bringing it into being.
Knowledge of the existence of the Connecticut River, and of the
advantages of its rich bottoms as sites both for trading and for
planting, seems to have been first acquired by the English through
information given to the Pilgrims by the Dutch. Friendly intercourse
between Plymouth and New Amsterdam had been opened by the latter as
early as 1626; and the Dutch not only taught the Pilgrims the value of
wampum in the Indian trade, but, seeing how barren a site they had
chosen for their settlement, told them of the Connecticut, and “wished
them to make use of it.” However, “their hands being full otherwise,
they let it pass” until, having been solicited by Indians who had been
driven from their homes there by invading Pequots from the West, they
dispatched several exploring and trading expeditions in 1633.[453] The
same Indians had also earlier requested the Massachusetts people to make
a settlement, but they had declined.[454] The Pilgrims, having made up
their minds to erect a permanent trading post on the river, also asked
the Bay people to join them; and when the latter refused, alleging their
poverty, they even offered to provide the capital for both if
Massachusetts would assume half the responsibility. This, likewise,
being refused, the Pilgrims went on with the project alone, after
telling the Bay authorities that they could have no cause to complain,
as they had now had ample opportunity to join; to which they
assented.[455] This was in the middle of July, and although the
Massachusetts leaders had done their best to discourage the Pilgrims, by
telling them the place was “not fit for plantation,” and by picking
other flaws in the project, nevertheless, four weeks later, they had
themselves dispatched a bark to Connecticut to trade, and John Oldham,
going overland, had also spied out the resources of the place, and
trafficked with the Indians there.[456] In view of all their actions,
then and subsequently, it would seem difficult to avoid the conclusion
that the Massachusetts authorities, having been offered by their
neighbors a chance to share in a profitable opportunity, deliberately
tried, by fraud and force, not only to obtain all the profits for
themselves, but to prevent the very people whose enterprise it was from
retaining any share in it. Not possessing the interpretative advantages
of a New England ancestry, one is, perhaps, limited to remarking that
the business dealings of ultra-religious people are often peculiar.
Footnote 453:
Bradford, _Plymouth_, pp. 222, 233, 311.
Footnote 454:
In 1631. J. Winthrop, _History_, vol. I, p. 62.
Footnote 455:
Bradford, _Plymouth_, pp. 312 _f._; J. Winthrop (_History_, vol. I, p.
125) gives as reasons for refusal that the place was not fit for
habitation on account of the Indians, the bar across the river, and
the closing of navigation in winter. Even his admiring editor, Savage,
was “constrained to remark” that these “look to me more like pretexts,
than real motives,” and that the Pilgrims' subsequent complaints of
their treatment by Massachusetts “appear very natural, if not
unanswerable” (p. 125 _n._).
Footnote 456:
J. Winthrop, _History_, vol. I, p. 132. Doyle (_Puritan Colonies_,
vol. I, p. 151), by a slip, wrongly dates the negotiations in 1634,
making it appear that they followed the Massachusetts expeditions
instead of preceding them.
The Dutch, meanwhile, seem to have repented of their former hospitality,
probably because of the warnings that the English had early sent them of
their encroachment upon English territory, and of the rapid growth of
the eastern colonies, which might threaten even their occupation of the
Hudson.[457] Hearing of the projected settlement by Plymouth, a party
was sent from New Amsterdam in January to buy land from the
Indians,[458] and some of the Dutch were already ensconced in a little
fort, on the present site of Hartford, when the English arrived in the
late summer. In spite of Dutch protests, however, the Pilgrims, in their
“great new barke,” sailed past the fort, and, passing north of the
bounds of the Hollanders' Indian purchase, settled at what is now
Windsor, buying the soil from its savage occupants. A later attempt by
the Dutch to dislodge them by threatened violence proved
unavailing.[459]
Footnote 457:
Bradford, _Letter-book_, pp. 51 _ff._ The Dutch territorial claims
were noted (_supra_, Chap. III). The English grant of this territory
preceded Dutch discovery by three years, but the question was one of
time between discovery and settlement, and of extension of territory
from points discovered. There was no established international law by
which this particular dispute could be settled. Individual opinion may
differ as to the ethics of the case. To me, with no desire to make out
a case either way, the legal points seem to be impossible of dogmatic
answer.
Footnote 458:
Bradford, _Plymouth_, p. 313; Acts of the United Colonies, vol. II, p.
65 (_Plymouth Records_, X). These Acts, vols. I and II, form vols. IX
and X of the _Plymouth Records_, and are hereafter cited as _Acts
United Colonies_. J. R. Brodhead, _History State of New York_, vol. I,
p. 204, gives the month as June; but the Records say January. Various
Dutch documents, all of a later period, state that a settlement was
contemplated, and possession taken, in 1623. _Cf._ _Documentary
History State of New York_, vol. III, p. 50; _N. Y. Colonial Docts._,
vols. I, pp. 286, 360, and II, p. 133. There is, however, no
contemporary documentary evidence of it; and it is certain, at least,
that there was no settlement actually made until that designed to
forestall the English in 1633.
Footnote 459:
Bradford, Plymouth, pp. 313 f. The Dutch side of the case is given in
_Acts United Colonies_, _ubi supra_.
Meanwhile, on the same day on which Winthrop recorded in his Journal the
results of the Massachusetts expedition to Connecticut, he also entered
the arrival of the ship Griffin, eight weeks from England, with John
Cotton, Thomas Hooker, Samuel Stone, and John Haynes among her
passengers. Cotton, as we have seen, remained in Boston, but the others
immediately went on to Newtown, where a body of Hooker's English
congregation had preceded him by a year.[460] Of this transplanted body,
Hooker and Stone now became pastor and teacher. It is not likely that
Hooker, with the political views he possessed, could have found the
Massachusetts atmosphere congenial; and a year later, he and his
congregation applied to the General Court for permission to remove to
Connecticut. The reasons they gave were the lack of land for expansion
at Newtown, the fear that otherwise Connecticut might fall into the
hands of other English or the Dutch, and, lastly, “the strong bent of
their spirits to remove thither.” The Court, however, refused the
petition, alleging many reasons, which, in the main, came to the fear
that such a defection would weaken the colony, and tend to draw away
future emigrants from it.[461] In the debates on the subject, a majority
of the deputies were in favor of allowing Hooker and his party to leave
if they wished, while a majority of the magistrates opposed it. This
raised the question whether the magistrates could veto a vote of the
more numerous body of deputies, which was the more popular and
democratic of the two. As the result of a sermon preached by Cotton the
contest, which had promised to become bitter, was postponed, and the
Newtown settlers were granted additional land in their present
neighborhood.[462] The incident is interesting, not only as marking the
beginning of the political struggle between the two elements in the
legislature, which we shall have occasion to follow later, but also as
an early example of that fear which the East has always had of the
growth of its western frontier and its desire to check it.
Footnote 460:
J. Winthrop, _History_, vol. I, p. 104.
Footnote 461:
_Ibid._, vol. I, p. 167.
Footnote 462:
_Ibid._, vol. I, p. 168; _Massachusetts Records_, vol. I, p. 129.
Owing to continued pressure, however, the legislature withdrew its
opposition the following year, and in 1635 permission was granted the
towns of Watertown, Roxbury, and Dorchester to move anywhere, provided
that they would continue subordinate to the Massachusetts government—a
condition which that government had no legal right to impose. A few
months later it went further, indeed, and passed a law that no one could
leave the colony without permission of a majority of the
magistrates.[463] As, under a previous law, no one could settle in
Massachusetts without the consent of the half-dozen or more men mainly
in control, so now no one, however uncongenial his surroundings or
urgent his need, could leave without permission from the same little
group.
Footnote 463:
_Massachusetts Records_, vol. I, pp. 146, 148, 167.
Parties from Dorchester at once availed themselves of the Court's
consent to leave, and by July were arriving daily on the Connecticut. On
that river no spot would suit them except that already bought and
occupied by the Pilgrims, from which the Massachusetts people now tried
to oust them. In reply to a protest from Governor Bradford, the
Dorchester men had the effrontery to answer that, as to the land settled
by the Pilgrims, God “in a faire way of providence tendered it to us.”
Upon this bit of fraud and hypocritical cant, Bradford caustically
commented that they should “abuse not Gods providence in such
allegations.” Massachusetts, however, was strong, and the Plymouth
people were weak; and although the latter did finally wring a reluctant
acknowledgment that the right was on their side, nevertheless they were
forced to yield fifteen sixteenths of their land, and were allowed only
one sixteenth and a little money, in an enterprise which was wholly
theirs, in which they had courteously tendered Massachusetts a half
interest, and which was located entirely outside any territory to which
that colony had any legal title. There was good reason for Bradford's
note in his diary, that the controversy was ended, “but the unkindness
not so soone forgotten.”
The winter was very severe, and many of the new settlers were obliged to
return to Boston; but in the spring, Hooker, with most of his
congregation, emigrated to the river, traveling overland, with their
herds of cattle, the precursors of an endless western stream. These
newcomers, Bradford carefully notes, as we also are glad to do, treated
the Pilgrims more fairly. By the end of 1636, there may have been eight
hundred people in Connecticut, settled mainly at Hartford, Windsor, and
Wethersfield, while the little settlement of Springfield, within the
legal limits of Massachusetts, had also been planted.[464]
Footnote 464:
Bradford, _Plymouth_, pp. 341 _f._; J. Winthrop, _History_, vol. I,
pp. 216, 223; B. Trumbull, _History of Connecticut_ (New Haven, 1818),
vol. I, p. 68.
These settlements, at first, were merely plantations and not organized
towns. They apparently had no officers, except constables,—who,
Massachusetts tried to require, should be sworn by one of her own
magistrates,—and the body politic consisted of the inhabitants, who met
together, as we have found them doing in Rhode Island, to decide upon
their common interests. The territory, however, in which they were
located, was also claimed at the time by a group of patentees, including
Lords Say, Brook, and others, who had been granted the lands by the Earl
of Warwick in 1632, but who had made no attempt to enter upon them until
three years later, when they sent John Winthrop, Jr., to act as
governor, and took other action looking toward settlement. Winthrop, who
had come to Boston in the ship with young Vane, was there at the time
that the emigration from Massachusetts took place, and Hooker and the
other emigrants consulted him concerning such rights as his principals
might claim. As a result, an agreement, to last one year, was entered
into between Winthrop, acting for Say, Brook, and their associates, and
Hooker and his, which provided that a court of eight magistrates should
be created, with power to summon a General Court, until further advices
could be received from England. This agreement, for purposes of record,
was ratified in the Massachusetts General Court, but was not a
“commission” from that colony, as often stated.[465]
Footnote 465:
_Massachusetts Records_, vol. I, pp. 170 _f._ Cf. W. DeL. Love, _The
Colonial History of Hartford_ (Hartford, 1914), pp. 70 _ff._ The
earliest records of the three Connecticut towns are lost, but by using
those of Springfield, Mr. Love has thrown much light upon the disputed
points as to the origin of the Connecticut “constitution.”
On May 31, 1638, when a new form of government was under consideration,
Hooker preached his famous sermon, in which he laid down the doctrines
that “the choice of public magistrates belongs unto the people by Gods
own allowance,” and that “they who have the power to appoint officers
and magistrates, it is in their power, also, to set bounds and
limitations of the power and place unto which they call them,” because
“the foundation of authority is laid, firstly, in the free consent of
the people.”[466] Neither to Hooker, nor to his fellow colonists of
Connecticut, was this last principle new, either in theory or in
practice. He was arguing, not for a democratic government, which they
already possessed, but for a fixed code of laws to rule the magistrates
in their actions. The following year, the constitution of the new
government was adopted by the residents of the plantations of Hartford,
Wethersfield, and Windsor.[467] That constitution provided for a General
Court, in which each of the three original plantations should be
represented by four deputies, and which should have the authority to
incorporate towns. It was only subsequent to the creation of this
general government by the inhabitants of the commonwealth, that the
towns, as political entities, came into being. Freemen were merely
required to be passed upon by the General Court, no religious
qualification being attached to the franchise. It is noteworthy that the
governor was not allowed to serve for two successive terms, and that no
reference was made to any external authority, not even to that of the
king.
Footnote 466:
The text of the sermon has not survived. The notes, by some hearer,
which are all we have, are in G. L. Walker, _Thomas Hooker_ (New York,
1891), p. 125, and elsewhere.
Footnote 467:
_Public Records of Colony of Connecticut_ (Hartford, 1850), vol. I,
pp. 20 _ff._ (Hereafter cited as _Conn. Col. Records_.)
While the descent of the “Fundamental Orders” of Connecticut can be
traced in every step from the earliest charters of the trading
companies, the transition was now complete. From such as we saw Tudor
monarchs granting to merchants in the fifteenth century, past all those
which we have noted as milestones by the way, the progress had been as
steady as it was unperceived, from the privileges possessed by a few
expatriated English traders and their clerks, dwelling among foreigners,
to the self-governed commonwealth of a people in a land which they had
made their own. While the charters, however, served as the framework of
their government, the foundation of their political philosophy was found
in the church covenant, which the Separatists had used in Europe for
forty years before the Mayflower sailed; and the constitution of
Connecticut was thus equally descended from religious theory and from
the practice of trade.
Although there was little in the Fundamental Orders, as settled in 1639,
which cannot be found in previous custom or legislation in Massachusetts
or Plymouth, nevertheless, only those elements which were of a
democratic tendency were put into the new constitution, and there was
distinctly a more democratic attitude on the part of the leaders and
people than in the Bay Colony. Such provisions as that making the
governor ineligible for immediate reëlection, and the franchise
independent of religious qualification, probably show a reaction from
the rule of Massachusetts.
The contrasted influences which the new colony and its parent were
bringing to bear upon the development of American thought at this time
may best be illustrated by the theories of their several leaders.
Perhaps the two most influential men in New England in 1640, and the two
who most deserved the positions assigned them, were John Winthrop, the
leader in Massachusetts, and Thomas Hooker, the leader in Connecticut.
Winthrop's opinion of democracy as “the worst of all forms of
government,” we have already noted, and may contrast with Hooker's
belief that the complete control of their rulers “belongs unto the
people by Gods own allowance.” In the important question whether judges
should render arbitrary decisions wholly according to their personal
views, or be limited by a fundamental body of laws, the two leaders were
equally far apart. “Whatsoever sentence the magistrate gives,” wrote
Winthrop, who opposed any such limitation, “the judgment is the Lord's,
though he do it not by any rule prescribed by civil authority.”[468]
“That in the matter which is referred to the judge,” asserted Hooker, on
the other hand, “the sentence should lie in his breast, or be left to
his discretion, according to which he should go, I am afraid it is a
course which wants both safety and warrant. I must confess, I ever
looked at it as a way which leads directly to tyranny, and so to
confusion, and must plainly profess, if it was in my liberty, I should
choose neither to live nor leave my posterity under such a
government.”[469]
Footnote 468:
_Connecticut Historical Society Collections_, vol. I, p. 17.
Footnote 469:
Letter to Winthrop, _Ibid._, p. 11.
The aristocratic and oligarchical tendencies at work in Massachusetts
there received enormous additional strength from the fact that the
clergy were almost a unit in their support of reactionary ideas. This
was a defect which was, to a certain extent, inherent in the Calvinistic
ministry; and the failure of the contemporary Puritan colony in the
Caribbean was, in considerable measure, due to the outrageous claims of
the Puritan ministers there upon the civil power.[470] The influence of
the Puritan clergyman upon his more devout followers could be equaled
only by that of the Catholics, and it is difficult for the modern layman
to realize its full extent. It came about in part from the Puritan
doctrine already noted, that nothing in life was untinged with a
religious aspect. If no one dreams now of any necessity of consulting
the clergy, as such, with reference to the fashion in clothes or the
economic and social policy of the nation, it is partly because those
matters are no longer considered as religious, but purely temporal. The
opinion of a clergyman, therefore, is of no more value than that of the
well-informed layman, with his broader practical experience of life, if,
indeed, of as much. One does, however, have recourse to a specialist,
and a banker's opinion is sought on finance, and a doctor's on health.
As, according to Puritan theory, there was no act which was not of a
religious or moral character, the clergyman was, so say, a specialist on
one aspect of everything, and from that standpoint his advice must be
sought in every detail of life, and his influence was correspondingly
great.
Footnote 470:
Newton, _Puritan Colonisation_, pp. 160 _ff._ _Cf._ similar conditions
in Bermuda, where the ministers went to such lengths as to “make a man
quite out of love with the government of the clergy.” _Cal. State
Pap., Col., 1574-1660_, p. 323.
The individuals who emigrated to Rhode Island and Connecticut were
mainly those who were dissatisfied with the restrictions imposed by
Massachusetts. That process of secondary selection had now begun which
was to continue to winnow out from every new community the most
adventurous and independent, and to plant them again to the westward in
still newer settlements, where, in turn, the process would again be
repeated. In the colonies now forming, therefore, there was a freer
opportunity for the seeds of liberty to grow than in the old Bay. The
new commonwealths had, in addition, the great advantage that in them, at
least at their beginning, the influence of the clergy was wholly upon
the side of freedom; and in estimating the results of priestly power in
New England, it is only just to recall that Roger Williams and Thomas
Hooker were clergymen, as well as the narrower divines of Boston and her
sister towns.
The westward movement of New England was to continue until her sons and
her institutions were to be found in a continuous chain of communities
from Portland on the Atlantic to Portland on the Pacific, and the
influence of New England thought upon the life of the nation cannot be
overestimated. In so far as the origins of that thought can be traced
back to any definite leaders, or individual colonies, it was evidently
the ideas of Williams and Hooker, rather than those of Winthrop, with
all his high qualities, which were to dominate the American people, and
to be absorbed into their very being.
At the same time that these new communities and influences were coming
into existence, there was the possibility of another experiment being
tried, in colonial matters, of a radically different sort.
The group of Puritan leaders, Warwick, Say, Brook, and others, whom we
noted earlier as being interested in promoting Puritan colonization both
in New England and in the Caribbean, had continued to be actively
engaged in colonizing the latter; while by their acquisition of the
Hilton patent in New Hampshire, and the grant in Connecticut, they were
still in possession of large tracts in the former. Since the emigration
of Winthrop in 1630, affairs in England had not improved politically,
though they had distinctly done so economically. About 1634 or 1635,
nearly all of the group of leaders with whom we are particularly
concerned suffered in one way and another from the influence of the
Court party. Warwick, who had been forced out of the Council for New
England three years earlier, was attacked under the forest laws, and
also made to divide his lord-lieutenancy of Essex. Pym was sued by the
Attorney-General, and Barrington, Say, and Brook suffered in their
estates.[471] In July, Humphrey, the Earl of Lincoln's brother-in-law,
arrived in Massachusetts with “propositions from some persons of great
quality and estate,” who were thinking of emigrating if satisfactory
arrangements could be made.[472] In October, the younger Winthrop went
to England, returning a year later with his commission as governor of a
projected colony at the mouth of the Connecticut.[473] At the end of
November, 1635, twenty men arrived there, and under the direction of
Lyon Gardiner, a fort was erected at Saybrook. Saltonstall, one of the
patentees, had also, a few months earlier, attempted to plant some men
higher up the river; but they had been driven out by the same lawless
Dorchester party that had fallen on the Pilgrims, causing Saltonstall a
loss of £1000.[474]
Footnote 471:
Newton, _Puritan Colonisation_, p. 175.
Footnote 472:
J. Winthrop, _History_, vol. I, p. 160.
Footnote 473:
The commission and agreement are in Trumbull, _Connecticut_, vol. I,
pp. 497 _ff._ The Warwick patent is given in vol. I, pp. 495 _f._
_Cf._ C. J. Hoadly, _The Warwick Patent_ (Acorn Club, Hartford, 1902),
pp. 7 _ff._
Footnote 474:
_Mass. Hist. Soc. Proceedings_, Series IV, vol. VI, pp. 579 _f._
Among the proposals made by Say, Brook, and the others to Massachusetts,
as conditions of their emigrating to New England, it was stipulated that
there should be two ranks in the commonwealth—gentlemen and freeholders;
that the power of making and repealing laws should belong to both ranks,
but that the governor should always be chosen from the higher. To these
and the other proposals the authorities in the colony wholly agreed, but
with the proviso that the church-membership qualification for the
franchise must be retained.[475] The theocracy of Massachusetts, under
the guidance of its ministers, had drifted far from the current of
English life. Englishmen have always had a thoroughly healthy hatred of
ecclesiastical rule in civil affairs, and, whatever country squires,
noblemen's factors, or tradesmen and mechanics, might be willing to do,
it could not be possible that such men as Warwick, Say, Brook, and Pym
could place their political rights and careers wholly in the hands of
the narrow-minded ministers and congregations of the little
Massachusetts town churches. On that account, and because of the turn of
affairs in England, the project was given up, and when, three years
later, Warwick, Brook, Say, and Darley announced definitely that they
were going to emigrate, it was not to New England but to their island in
the Caribbean. Although they were not permitted to do so, the fact marks
the distinct breach which had now taken place between the rulers of
Massachusetts and the leaders of the Puritan party in England. The
mistaken policy of the colony, which earlier had brought alarmed
protests from her less powerful friends at home, had now definitely
alienated her most influential ones. The selfish attitude toward her
neighbors, already shown upon the Penobscot, the Piscataqua, and the
Connecticut, and which, unfortunately, was to become more aggressive and
unscrupulous, also lost her the friendship of her sister colonies. The
result was that, when the real struggle came with the English
government, a generation later, Massachusetts, although, thanks to her
geographical position and aggressive acquisitiveness, she had become the
most powerful of the New England group, found herself with hardly a
friend in the old country or the new.
Footnote 475:
The proposals and Cotton's answer are in Hutchinson, _History_, vol.
I, pp. 433 _ff._
The work of extending the frontier was not a mere matter of discussions
or of peaceful penetration into an untenanted wilderness. Owing to the
great plague, which had so nearly annihilated the natives in the regions
where the settlers had first planted, the Indian danger had never been a
serious one, and no such massacre as almost wiped out the Virginia
colony need have been apprehended. The savage, however, had been an
important element in the life of the settlements. As friend or spying
enemy, he was as constantly in and out of the little villages as he is
of the pages of the early records. Although there was, unluckily, little
that the white man could teach him that was of any service, he, on the
contrary, taught the colonists many a useful lesson. He showed them how
and where to plant, trapped their game and gathered in their stock of
furs, guided them through the almost trackless forests, and, in a
multitude of ways, gave them knowledge of the land which they had
entered and of the products it might yield. In the background,
nevertheless, always lurked the danger that the natives might grow tired
of being slowly dispossessed, that they might decide to make an end of a
situation which the more far-sighted among them could not fail to see
would inevitably more and more narrow the free range for their savage
life. In the fifteen years since Bradford and his little band had landed
in an almost deserted spot, the white population had grown alarmingly.
Moreover, their increasing numbers and desire for expansion would
naturally lead the settlers to adopt a more aggressive attitude toward
the natives in any dispute occurring between them. There was more and
more probability of trouble, arising from individual outrage on the part
of an unscrupulous or ruffianly white, or of some aggrieved or drunken
Indian, of which the organized power of the former would but too likely
take full advantage. The Old Testament texts on dealing with those
outside the pale of God's chosen people offered little comfort to the
Indian, should the Puritan divines ever start on the war-path.
At the beginning of 1633 word was received in Boston that a certain
Captain Stone had been murdered by the Pequots, or Indians allied to
them, after having landed at the mouth of the Connecticut. The exact
truth of what occurred is not known. Stone, who was a trader from
Virginia, was a drunken, dissolute, and thoroughly worthless character,
and very likely provoked the natives by some act. On the other hand,
their stories of what happened did not agree, and were not above
suspicion.[476] The Massachusetts authorities reported the matter to
Virginia, and no further action was taken until the following year, when
an embassy from the Pequots arrived at Boston. That tribe had become
embroiled in a quarrel with the Narragansetts on the east, and the Dutch
on the west, and were, therefore, anxious to smooth their relations with
the English. They agreed to deliver up the two men who had killed Stone,
to surrender their rights to Connecticut, and to pay damages in furs and
wampum. A few days later a number of Narragansetts appeared, who had
come to waylay the Pequots on their way home; but the Massachusetts
authorities purchased the safety of the savages and promise of peace
between the two tribes, by offering the Narragansetts some of the Pequot
wampum. Although the Bay Colony had thus bought the Pequot title to
Connecticut with the blood of the slain Virginian, the natives had no
idea, apparently, of observing the terms of the bargain, nor did the
English take further steps in the matter until two years later, when the
younger Winthrop, then at Saybrook, was commissioned to treat with the
savages regarding rumors of recent outrages, and to declare war if he
could not obtain satisfaction.[477]
Footnote 476:
J. Winthrop, _History_, vol. I, pp. 132, 146; Bradford, _Plymouth_,
pp. 323 _ff._
Footnote 477:
J. Winthrop, _History_, vol. I, pp. 176 _ff._; _Mass. Hist. Soc.
Proceedings_, Series III, vol. III, pp. 130 _f._
A fortnight later news came of the murder of John Oldham, and the
capture of two boys, in his small boat, while off Block Island on a
trading voyage. The natives of that island, who were subordinate to the
Narragansetts, were the guilty parties, but the crime seems to have been
committed with the connivance of the Narraganset sachems, except
Canonicus and Miantanomo. Through the intercession of Roger Williams,
the latter sachem secured the release of the two youngsters, while
emissaries of Massachusetts, who went to treat with Canonicus, returned
home fully satisfied. So far, matters had been conducted reasonably and
patiently. Suddenly, however, on the advice of the Massachusetts
magistrates and ministers, the policy was completely changed, and a
course of blundering stupidity and criminal folly was entered upon. John
Endicott, with about a hundred volunteers, was ordered to proceed to
Block Island, where he was instructed to put all the men to death,
without making any effort to distinguish between guilty and innocent.
The women and children were to be carried off, and possession taken of
the island. Thence he was to go on to the Pequots, demand the murderers
of Stone and Oldham, and a thousand fathoms of wampum, and to secure, by
consent or force, some of the children as hostages.[478]
Footnote 478:
J. Winthrop, _History_, vol. I, pp. 229 _f._
Endicott possessed none of the qualities of a military leader, and
although his lack of knowledge prevented this bloody decree from being
carried out, he managed to do just enough to enrage the savages without
intimidating them. The party, after two days' searching, failed to find
the island Indians, who were in hiding in the underbrush, but burned
their wigwams, mats, and provisions, staved their canoes, and valiantly
slew their dogs. They next proceeded to Saybrook, where Lyon Gardiner,
who, in his little outpost, was responsible for the lives of twenty-four
men, women, and children, did his best to warn Endicott of his folly.
The corn-fields of the Saybrook people were two miles from the fort, and
if the Indians, who had shown themselves suspiciously unfriendly of
late, should be stung to revenge by Endicott, starvation and massacre
would confront the settlement. “You come hither to raise these wasps
about my ears,” said Gardiner, “and then you will take wings and flee
away.” In spite of the dictates of common sense and humanity, Endicott
proceeded to do just that. At Pequot Harbor he killed two Indians,
burned many wigwams, staved the canoes, and then sailed away to the
safety of Boston, leaving Saybrook and the towns on the Connecticut at
the mercy of the savages, whom Massachusetts had now roused to
fury.[479]
Footnote 479:
_Ibid._, vol. I, p. 232; John Underhill, “Newes from America,” _Mass.
Hist. Soc. Coll._, Series III, vol. VI, pp. 6-11; L. Gardiner,
“Relation of the Pequot Wars,” _Ibid._, vol. III, pp. 138 _ff._
The Pequots immediately made peace with the Narragansetts, urging them
to a common war against the English. Such a combination, under the
circumstances, would have meant a disaster of the first magnitude, and
Massachusetts was now forced to ask the help of the only man who could
avert it, but whom she had already driven from her company—Roger
Williams. In response to most urgent appeals sent from the Governor and
Council, he at once started, “all alone in a poore canow, and to cut
through a stormie wind with great seas, every minute in hazard of life,
to the Sachem's house.” There he remained three days, and by means of
his friendship with Miantanomo, he won the Narragansetts back to the
side of the English, and broke up the proposed alliance between the
savages. In consequence of this inestimable service, Winthrop and some
of the Massachusetts council, Williams wrote, “debated whether or no I
had not merited, not only to be recalled from banishment, but also to be
honored with some mark of favor”; but neither the authorities nor the
contemporary historians, except Winthrop, had the generosity to say a
word of the man who had saved New England.[480] In the fall, Miantanomo
and other Narragansett sachems went to Boston, and signed a treaty with
the English, which included an offensive alliance against the Pequots.
Footnote 480:
Williams's Letter to Mason, _Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll._, Series I, vol.
I, p. 177. J. Winthrop, _History_, vol. I, pp. 234, 237. Even Palfrey
dismisses Williams's services in three lines; _History_, vol. I, p.
460.
Meanwhile, the results of the folly that Massachusetts had perpetrated,
and against which Plymouth as well as Saybrook had formally protested,
now made themselves felt.[481] Three men were killed at Saybrook,
another was roasted alive, a trader was murdered at Six-mile Island,
then two more at Saybrook, and another on his way up the river. At
Wethersfield, nine men were slaughtered, and two young girls carried
into captivity.[482] The horrors of Indian warfare became the hourly
dread of every inhabitant along the frontier, thanks to the
Massachusetts magistrates and ministers. Having, as Gardiner predicted,
raised the wasps about his ears and those of all the English along the
river, Massachusetts now asked help of Plymouth, as she had before
turned to Williams. That colony agreed to lend aid, but in doing so,
recalled to her stronger neighbor how she had refused help against the
French when the Pilgrims were the petitioners; how she had interfered
with their trade on the Kennebec; and how she had deprived their
Connecticut pioneers of their lands.[483]
Footnote 481:
J. Winthrop, _History_, vol. I, p. 238.
Footnote 482:
Gardiner, “Relation,” pp. 143, 144, 148.
Footnote 483:
Bradford, _Plymouth_, pp. 352 _ff._; J. Winthrop, _History_, vol. I,
pp. 260 _ff._
But the settlers on the latter river could not await the slow movements
of the Bay Colony, if the lives of their wives and children were to be
saved. At the Connecticut General Court of May 1, 1637, war was declared
against the Pequots, and ninety men, from the three plantations, were
levied for immediate service.[484] The expedition, under command of
Captain John Mason, with some Indian auxiliaries under Uncas,
immediately proceeded to Saybrook, where they were joined by Underhill,
who happened to be there, and a few additional men.[485] A skirmish, in
which the Indians, whose fidelity had been doubted, acquitted themselves
loyally, encouraged them not a little. The original plan had been to
sail down the coast to the Pequot River and to attack the enemy
directly, but this was wisely changed at the suggestion of Mason.
According to the new plans, the party set sail for Narragansett Bay,
with the design of then returning overland, and making a surprise attack
on the Pequots, who were expecting it from the water. After landing on
the shore of the Bay, and being reinforced by several hundred
Narragansetts, Mason marched his band from eight in the morning until an
hour after dark, when they camped about two miles from the Pequot fort.
It had been decided to attack only the larger of the two villages, a
palisadoed enclosure of an acre or two.[486] About one o'clock, the
English were on the march again, but were deserted by all the Indians,
Narragansetts and Mohegans alike, before reaching the fort. The palisade
having two entrances, opposite one another, it was agreed that two
parties, led respectively, by Mason and Underhill, should make
simultaneous attacks upon them. In spite of the fact that the Indians
had been warned, by the barking of their dogs, of the approach of the
enemy, Mason boldly jumped over the brush piled at the entrance, and was
followed by his men. The other party also entered at the opposite side,
and the slaughter of the dazed and half-awakened savages began. Seeing,
however, that the resistance might prove too much for his men, Mason
snatched a torch from a wigwam and set fire to the village, which, owing
to the strong wind blowing, was soon ablaze. The English now had only to
withdraw, and to shoot any wretched savage who attempted to climb over
the palisade. In the early dawn of that May morning, as the New England
men stood guard over the flames, five hundred men, women, and children
were slowly burned alive.[487] Not over eight escaped, and there were
but seven captives. The English lost two killed and twenty wounded. It
is difficult to imagine what thoughts must have been in the minds of the
Puritans as they slowly roasted the Indian women and children. Mason
merely notes that, by the providence of God, there were one hundred and
fifty more savages than usual in the village that night.
Footnote 484:
_Conn. Col. Records_, vol. I, p. 9.
Footnote 485:
The accounts do not agree. _Cf._ Mason, “A brief History of the Pequot
War,” _Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll._, Series II, vol. VIII, p. 134;
Underhill, “Newes from New England,” p. 16; Gardiner, “Relation,” p.
149.
Footnote 486:
Mason, “Brief History,” p. 137; P. Vincent, “A true Relation,” _Mass.
Hist. Soc. Coll._, Series III, vol. VI, p. 38.
Footnote 487:
Mason says 600 to 700 (“Brief History,” p. 141); Underhill, 400
(“Newes from New England,” p. 25); Gardiner, 300 (“Relation,” p. 150).
Mason's account throughout is the most accurate.
The English, carrying their wounded, retreated to the ships,—which
fortunately had come into Pequot Harbor,—as the savages from the smaller
village were hampering their movements. With the vessels had also
arrived Captain Patrick and forty men from Massachusetts, that colony
having voted one hundred and sixty, and Plymouth sixty, although too
late to take part in the expedition. The bulk of the Pequot nation was
now destroyed, and it remained only to make an end of the few hundred
who had thus far escaped. Sassacus, the sachem, being repudiated by his
own followers, fled with seventy warriors to the Mohawks, and the
English indefatigably ran down detached parties. In a swamp twenty miles
from the Dutch line, eighty of the Pequots' “stoutest men,” with two
hundred old people, women, and children, made a last stand. After being
subjected to the fire of the English for some hours, the two hundred
non-combatants surrendered, while the warriors fought to the last man,
twenty finally escaping through the surrounding lines. The other savages
turned against the all but annihilated Pequots, and “happy were they,”
wrote Mason, “that could bring in their heads to the English: Of which
there came almost daily to Windsor or Hartford.” In all, during the
campaign, over seven hundred were killed or made captive.[488]
Footnote 488:
_Massachusetts Records_, vol. I, p. 192; _Plymouth Records_, vol. I,
p. 60; Mason, “Brief History,” pp. 141, 148; J. Winthrop, _History_,
vol. I, p. 279.
[Illustration:
Document signed by Uncas and his Squaw
Original in Massachusetts Historical Society
]
Of the prisoners some were divided between Uncas and the Narragansetts,
while the rest were kept by the English, or sold into bondage in the
West Indies.[489] In the division of this human spoil, the clergy took
its part. “Sir,” wrote the Reverend Mr. Peter to Governor Winthrop, “Mr.
Endecot and myself salute you in the Lord Jesus. Wee have heard of a
dividence of women and children in the bay and would bee glad of a share
viz: a young woman or girle and a boy if you thinke good. I wrote to you
for some boyes for Bermudas, which I thinke is considerable.”[490]
Fifteen boys and two women were sent thither as slaves, but whether for
the profit of the Reverend Peter, Winthrop does not say. Roger Williams
pleaded over and over again, but in vain, with the Massachusetts
authorities for a more lenient course. “Since the Most High delights in
mercy, and great revenge hath bene allready taken,” he advised
incorporating the survivors among the friendly Indians; but though, only
a short time before, the Massachusetts authorities had been pleading
with Williams to save themselves, they now turned a deaf ear to his
intercession for the natives.[491] The Narragansetts and Mohegans were
both anxious to adopt the few survivors of their powerful enemies,
according to Indian custom, so that Williams's suggestions were as
practicable as they were merciful. Two hundred were finally so allotted
by Connecticut, when the last remnants of the Pequots submitted and the
River plantations entered into a treaty with Uncas and Miantanomo.[492]
From the end of the Pequot war, all the New England colonies adopted not
only Indian but negro slavery, and it was wholly due to economic, and
not ethical, causes that the institution did not take root. In the one
small locality in all New England where it proved profitable, it did so
root itself, and the importing of slaves for use in the other colonies
long constituted an important part of Puritan trade.[493]
Footnote 489:
_Ibid._, vol. I, p. 279.
Footnote 490:
_Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll._, Series IV, vol. VI, p. 95.
Footnote 491:
_Ibid._, p. 225. Other quotations from Williams and others are
conveniently gathered in G. H. Moore, _Notes on the History of Slavery
in Massachusetts_ (New York, 1866), pp. 1-10.
Footnote 492:
Text in E. R. Potter, “Early History of Narragansett”; _Rhode Island
Historical Society Collections_, vol. III, pp. 177 _f._
Footnote 493:
E. Channing, _The Narragansett Planters_ (J. H. U. S., 1886), p. 10;
W. E. B. DuBois, _The Suppression of the African Slave Trade_ (Harvard
Univ. Press, 1916), pp. 27 _ff._
The contest between the English and the Indians had been inevitable from
the start. The murders of the two traders were but the sparks that
touched off the explosive material which had long been accumulating. The
struggle, with varying details and proximate causes, but based upon the
unchanging fundamental conflict of the natures and economic interests of
the two races, was to be repeated over and over again as the American
frontier advanced. Endicott's stupid campaign, and, perhaps the too
thorough absorption of Old Testament examples, had made the struggle
almost inhumanly bloody in the first advance of that frontier in New
England. The effect, however, was complete. It was to be nearly forty
years before the savages regained sufficient strength, and found a
leader to attempt again to dispute the relentless advance of the Puritan
planters.
CHAPTER IX | | ATTEMPTS TO UNIFY NEW ENGLAND
As a result of the complete crushing of the power of the Pequots their
whole country was opened to peaceful settlement, and the extension of
the frontier in that direction became rapid. Within about two years from
the signing of the treaty with the savages, the foundations were laid of
Guilford, New Haven, Milford, Stratford, Fairfield, Norwalk, and
Stamford along the Sound, and of Southampton and Southold on the eastern
end of Long Island, thus making a continuous line of English settlement
up to the Dutch boundary, if not, indeed, within it.[494]
Footnote 494:
The Southampton settlers at first tried to plant well within it, but
were forced out by the Dutch. _Cf._ _N. Y. Col. Docts._, vols. II, pp.
145 _ff._, and XIV, pp. 30 _ff._; Adams, _History of Southampton_, pp.
48 _ff._
For its size, New Haven was undoubtedly the wealthiest colony in New
England, its assessed valuation, the year after it was planted, having
been £33,000, or the present equivalent of, perhaps, $700,000.[495] Its
founders, under the leadership of the Reverend John Davenport, a
Nonconformist London clergyman, and Theophilus Eaton, a schoolmate of
his, had arrived in the early summer of 1637, just in time to take part
in the Antinomian controversy and the taxes for the Pequot war. Mr.
Davenport was requested to contribute to the former, and Mr. Eaton to
the latter.[496] Their company was a distinguished one, including
several other wealthy London merchants besides Eaton; five ministers;
four school-teachers, among whom was the first president of Harvard; the
father of Elihu Yale, the founder of Yale University; and Michael
Wigglesworth, the “lurid morning star” of New England verse.[497] Both
Davenport and Eaton had been, for some years, members of the
Massachusetts Bay Company, and that company's colony made great efforts
to retain the new body of settlers within its own bounds. While the
leaders took under consideration the various offers made to them, they
either found them unsatisfactory, or had already determined to establish
an independent colony of their own.[498] After Eaton had examined the
country around Quinnipiack, it was decided to plant there, and seven men
were left to guard the site during the winter, the whole company
following in the spring. Not only were the resources of the colonists
unusually ample, but their preparations seem to have been exceptionally
complete, and the little town soon contained the most stately dwellings
in all New England. Some idea of their scale may be gained from the
reputed presence in Davenport's of thirteen fireplaces, and of nineteen
in Eaton's.[499] The intention, apparently, was not only to found a
Puritan state, but to have it become the chief mercantile centre of the
New World, which accounts for their having built, as one of their
Massachusetts critics wrote, “as if trade and merchandize had been as
inseparably annexed to them as the shadow is to the body, in the shining
of the sun.”[500] One disaster followed another in their business
ventures, however, and the dreams of the merchant-founders were never
realized.
Footnote 495:
Estimated from entry in _Records of the Colony and Plantation of New
Haven_ (Hartford, 1857), p. 25. Hereafter cited as _New Haven
Records_.
Footnote 496:
J. Winthrop, _History_, vol. I, pp. 271 _ff._; _Massachusetts
Records_, vol. I, pp. 210, 225.
Footnote 497:
C. H. Levermore, _Republic of New Haven_ (J. H. U. S., 1886), p. 8; E.
E. Atwater, _History of Colony of New Haven_ (New Haven, 1881), pp.
112 _ff._
Footnote 498:
J. Winthrop, _History_, vol. I, p. 283; letter from Davenport and
Eaton to Massachusetts, _Bulletin New York Public Library_, 1899, pp.
393 _f._
Footnote 499:
Atwater, _New Haven_, pp. 393 _f._
Footnote 500:
Hubbard, _History of New England_, p. 334.
Davenport and most of his company were not only Puritans, but of the
strictest sect, and the Bible Commonwealth which they proceeded to form
was of the most extreme type. Like the Connecticut and Rhode Island
people, they were without a charter, and were mere squatters upon the
soil; but in June, 1639, a meeting was held of the “free planters,” to
discuss a frame of government to replace a previously signed plantation
covenant, now lost. We have no knowledge of what constituted a “free
planter,” but the term undoubtedly excluded a large number of males in
the settlement. The proceedings took the form of queries put by Mr.
Davenport, upon which those present voted by raising hands. As a result
of unanimous votes at this meeting, the fundamental agreement provided
that the franchise should be restricted to church members, and that the
free planters should choose twelve men, to whom should be intrusted the
sole right of selecting from among the rest of the colonists those who
should become church members and freemen, and who were to have the power
of appointing magistrates from among themselves, of making and repealing
laws, and, in fact, of performing all public duties.[501] This was
legalizing the most extreme claims of the Massachusetts oligarchy. Only
one voice, apparently that of Eaton, was raised to protest “that free
planters ought not to give this power out of their hands”; but he was,
of course, overruled. Four months later, at the October court, it was
further voted that “the worde of God shall be the only rule to be
attended unto in ordering the affayres of government in this
plantation.”[502] As had been the case in Connecticut, no mention had
been made of allegiance to England; but in this additional step, the new
colony swept away all obligation to observe the common and statute laws
of the mother-country. The conflicting texts of the Bible, as
arbitrarily chosen and interpreted by the small self-perpetuating group
of rulers, became the only laws that might safeguard, or hazard, the
rights of dwellers in New Haven and the affiliated church-towns which
soon sprang up. The reactionary thought of the framers of these
fundamental orders, however, was to be without appreciable influence
upon the growth of colonial political theory as then developing; for New
Haven was to have only a quarter of a century of independent but
unimportant life before being absorbed by Connecticut, while a more and
more democratic tendency was manifesting itself in all the colonies,
even in Massachusetts.
Footnote 501:
_New Haven Records_, vol. I, pp. 11 _ff._
Footnote 502:
_Ibid._, p. 21.
The effects of the frontier life, and of the distance separating England
from her colonies, were already beginning to show themselves strongly.
The semi-independent communities which had been established in Rhode
Island, Connecticut, and New Haven were entirely without legal
authority; and the two latter, in their “constitutions,” had utterly
ignored the existence of any power outside of themselves. The situation
was not wholly overlooked in England, but as the crisis in public
affairs there was rapidly drawing near, the authorities were helpless to
interfere. A new demand for the return of the Massachusetts charter,
when flatly refused by that colony in 1638,[503] could not be followed
by any show of force; and during the next twenty-two years—which were
those of the Civil War, the fall of the Stuart monarchy, and the reign
of Cromwell—the New England colonies pursued their way almost wholly
without reference to the power of England.
Footnote 503:
J. Winthrop, _History_, vol. I, p. 324; _Acts Privy Council,
Colonial_, vol. I, pp. 217, 227 _f._; Hutchinson, _History_, vol. I,
pp. 84 _ff._, 442 _ff._; Hazard, _Historical Collections_, vol. I, pp.
432 _f._
The influence of the frontier was being felt in their domestic concerns
as well. Although the most aggressively radical of the inhabitants of
Massachusetts had, perhaps, gone to the other colonies, there to
establish themselves in greater freedom, the struggle of the citizens
continued, nevertheless, against the arbitrary power of their
government. From the first, the body of magistrates had acted in a
judicial, as well as an executive, capacity. The only rule by which they
were guided is indicated by a resolution in the General Court of 1636,
which provided that they should “determine all causes according to the
lawes nowe established, and where there is noe law, then as neere the
lawe of God as they can.”[504] As English law, in many cases, was not
justly applicable, and as, in others, it was largely neglected, this
really meant the comparatively few laws already enacted in the colony,
and the same arbitrary selection and interpretation of Old Testament
texts that we have just noted in New Haven. As the magistrates acted as
both attorneys and judges, and as no appeals were permitted from their
decisions, no accused person had any protection against them. Anyone,
therefore, who might be obnoxious to the ruling powers on account of his
views, could not hope for justice; and the so-called trials of Mrs.
Hutchinson, Wheelwright, and other notable offenders, were, in reality,
not trials at all, but “relentless inquisitions used by the government
for the purpose of crushing opposition.”[505] That condition was not,
indeed, peculiar to Massachusetts, and was probably just as true of
contemporary England. It was Hooker's glory in Connecticut to have
raised his voice, as the leader of that colony, to plead for a legal
restraint upon this arbitrary exercise of the judicial power of
government, and for the creation of a body of fundamental law. In 1639,
a committee was appointed in that colony for the purpose of drawing up
such a code. The same had been formally demanded in Massachusetts even
earlier, but there the wishes of the people had been steadily opposed by
their leaders.
Footnote 504:
_Massachusetts Records_, vol. I, p. 175.
While the Massachusetts trials of the type just noted were exceptional,
and in general, when passions were not aroused, the ordinary course of
justice was fairly equitable, nevertheless, the entire absence of any
restraint upon the unbridled will of the magistrates was a source of
apprehension to the more serious thinking and liberty-loving residents
of Massachusetts, outside the ring of authority. Not only was any
opposition to the course pursued by the government liable to result in
banishment, with the complete uprooting of a man's life, and perhaps the
financial ruin of himself and his family, but in trivial matters all the
inhabitants, and more particularly, of course, the four fifths who were
not church members, were liable to constant interference by the
authorities. Such a law, for example, as that declaring that whosoever
should “spend his time idlely or unproffitably” should suffer such
penalty “as the court shall thinke meete to inflicte”[506] was typical,
both in its utter lack of definition of the nature of the crime, and in
its failure to specify the penalty to be incurred by the criminal.
Footnote 505:
Osgood, _American Colonies_, vol. I, p. 189.
Footnote 506:
_Massachusetts Records_, vol. I, p. 109.
In spite of the demands of the people in Massachusetts, however, it was
not until 1640 that a draft of a fundamental law seems to have really
been considered. The clergy and most of the magistrates had been opposed
to any limitation of arbitrary authority, and had fought the requests
with what their modern defender has called the weapon of “a good-natured
procrastination,” but which may have worn another aspect to some at the
time.[507] Finally, in 1641, an Abstract of Laws, or Body of Liberties,
was passed, which marked a distinct step forward, though by no means
assuring full protection. One draft, which was not, however, accepted,
was based entirely upon Bible texts, of which, characteristically, but
two were drawn from the New Testament and forty-six from the Old.[508]
Additional safeguards were required, and four years later, the whole
discussion as to specific penalties for specific offenses was again
reopened. The clergy and Winthrop still opposed any limitation upon
judicial authority, the Governor, indeed, going so far as to say that
God had made specific penalties only in certain cases, and as “judges
are Gods upon earth,” their power should not be more limited than
his—which might be denominated strong doctrine.[509] In spite of all
opposition, however, a new code, based in part upon the Body of
Liberties, was finally secured and printed in 1648, twenty years after
the first demand, and ten after Hooker's famous sermon at Hartford.[510]
Footnote 507:
Palfrey, _History_, vol. II, p. 22. For earlier efforts to secure its
passage, _cf._ _Massachusetts Records_, vol. I, pp. 174, 222, 279,
292; J. Winthrop, _History_, vol. I, pp. 191, 240.
Footnote 508:
_Cf._ _Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll._, Series I, vol. V, pp. 171 _ff._ The
Body as passed is in _Ibid._, Series III, vol. VIII, pp. 216 _ff._
Footnote 509:
_Massachusetts Records_, vol. II, pp. 92 _ff._; “Arbitrary Government
Described,” in R. C. Winthrop, _J. Winthrop_, vol. II, p. 448. _Cf._
also J. Winthrop, _History_, vols. I, pp. 388 _ff._, and II, pp. 67
_ff._
Footnote 510:
_Massachusetts Records_, vol. II, pp. 61, 168, 262.
The antagonism to the power of the magistrates was manifested also by
new episodes in the struggle between them and the more democratic
deputies, which we noted as beginning at the time of the Connecticut
emigration. A dispute over the ownership of a sow, between a poor widow
and a rich man notorious for his unjust business dealings, was finally
brought to the General Court for decision. The evidence was by no means
convincing, and the Court was divided, with a majority of the
magistrates in favor of a verdict for the rich Keaynes, and a majority
of the deputies in favor of the poor widow. The point was thus raised
again as to whether the small number of magistrates, by a negative vote,
could block the will of the much larger body of deputies.[511] Winthrop
wrote a treatise on the question, appealing to certain English
precedents and the Old Testament, and stated that, if the magistrates
were not allowed to veto the action of the deputies, the colony would be
a democracy and “there was no such government in Israel.”[512] So
implacably did the grim shades of Moses and Aaron block the paths of
Boston Common. The magistrates, in view of the strong opposition that
developed, offered to leave the matter to the clergy, and to give way if
the decision were adverse. They knew, of course, that it would not be
so, and Winthrop records that it was “their only care to gain time,”
until the people could be brought to the heel of their clerical leaders
as usual. As part of the plan, the members of the Court were asked to
take advice before the next meeting; and it is interesting as showing
the normal danger for the ordinary citizen in discussing public matters,
that a special act should be thought necessary making it “no offence for
any, either publicly or privately, to declare their opinion in the case,
so it were modestly.”[513] The following year, a compromise was
effected, which, however, was distinctly in favor of the magistrates;
and thereafter the deputies and the magistrates sat as two separate
houses, each with a negative vote on the other.[514]
Footnote 511:
J. Winthrop, _History_, vols. I, pp. 377 _ff._; and II, pp. 83 _ff._,
142 _ff._
Footnote 512:
The essay is given in R. C. Winthrop, _J. Winthrop_, vol. II, pp. 427
_ff._
Footnote 513:
J. Winthrop, _History_, vol. II, p. 143.
Footnote 514:
_Massachusetts Records_, vol. II, pp. 58 _f._
Another incident in the struggle, which soon occurred, involved both the
question of the power of the local government over the colonists, and
the relations of the colony to the home government in England. In 1644,
it was suggested to the General Court that the condition of the large
number of unrepresented inhabitants be improved by increasing the civil
privileges that a citizen might possess without being a church member,
such privileges then being limited, apparently, to a small share in
local town business.[515] Nothing, however, was done, and two years
later, a petition signed by a Dr. Robert Child, Samuel Maverick, and
five others was presented, reciting that there were many thousands in
the colony who were debarred from all participation in government,
although they paid taxes and were subject to military and other duties.
Child was a newcomer, “a gentleman and a scholar,” and a graduate of the
University of Padua. Maverick was the richest of the “old planters,” and
the only freeman who was not a church member—a privilege which he owed
to the circumstances connected with the first planting of the colony, as
already related. Thomas Fowle, another of the signers, was a merchant;
while yet another, David Yale, was a man of property, and both a stepson
of Theophilus Eaton of New Haven and a brother-in-law of Governor
Hopkins of Connecticut. At this very time, he was acting as attorney for
the Earl of Warwick.[516] The motives of the signers may not have been
wholly disinterested, but the effort to make out that they were persons
of no importance in the colony has been overdone.[517]
Footnote 515:
J. Winthrop, _History_, vol. II, pp. 193, 349.
Footnote 516:
_Cal. State Pap., Col., 1574-1660_, p. 327.
Footnote 517:
J. Winthrop, _History_, vol. II, pp. 320 _n._, 358. _Cf._ Winslow,
“New England's Salamander,” in _Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll._, Series III,
vol. II, pp. 117 _ff._
The petitioners desired that “members of the church of England, not
scandalous in their lives and conversations,” be admitted to the
churches, and that “civil liberty and freedom be forthwith granted to
all truly English, equall to the rest of their countrymen, as in all
plantations is accustomed to be done, and as all freeborne enjoy in our
native country.”[518] Other reforms were demanded, and although some of
the charges were overdrawn, nevertheless, the main point was not fairly
met in the lengthy reply prepared by Winthrop, Dudley, and others of the
court.[519] That point was that in an English colony, and upon English
soil, the great majority of the inhabitants were debarred from a share
in the government because of beliefs which would not have so
disfranchised them in the home country. No amount of legal casuistry
expended upon the charter, and no amount of sophistry employed in
explaining the relations between the colony and England, could alter
that fact, nor the additional one that Massachusetts was a colony and
not an independent nation. As the request of the petitioners was for
such liberties only as they would have possessed at home, and not for
general religious toleration, an appeal to England was natural, and was
set on foot as soon as the reply of the magistrates was received.
Winthrop, however, declared that he would not tolerate such an appeal,
and the petitioners were heavily fined by the court, and two of them
imprisoned.[520] Child, and some of the others insisting upon going to
England, they were seized just before the ship sailed, their baggage and
houses were searched, and they themselves imprisoned. As some of the
magistrates had not agreed to the earlier proceedings, they were not
consulted in the present one, which was distinctly of a Star-Chamber
sort. Among the papers of Dand, another signer, was found one suggesting
the appointment of a royal governor, for which he also was promptly put
in jail. Vassall and Fowle finally reached England; but the political
situation there by 1647 had become such as to preclude any consideration
of colonial matters.
Footnote 518:
Hutchinson, _Papers_, vol. I, pp. 216 _ff._; _New England's Jonas cast
up in London_, Force Tracts, vol. IV, pp. 8 _ff._
Footnote 519:
Hutchinson, _Papers_, vol. I, pp. 223 _ff._; J. Winthrop, _History_,
vol. II, pp. 348 _ff._ Prof. G. L. Kittredge has recently written an
elaborate account of Dr. Child—"Doctor Robert Child the Remonstrant,"
reprinted from _Publications, Col. Soc., Mass._, 1919. It is a strong
brief in defense of the action taken by the Massachusetts authorities,
and contains the fullest and most accurate account of the Petition and
the subsequent trials yet written. Prof. Kittredge is a firm supporter
of the old theory that Child was plotting to overthrow the government
in the interests of Presbyterianism. While this may be so, it seems
not to cover the cases of the other remonstrants. The main interest of
the affair for our present work, however, lies in the evidence
afforded of discontent with the Puritan regime, and in that
connection, Prof. Kittredge, after showing the extreme diversity of
views held by the signers on most matters, speaks of “their discontent
with the administration which was the sole binding element common to
all the Remonstrants” (p. 29). He also states (p. 52), that “there was
more or less public sentiment in favor of the defendants.”
Footnote 520:
_Massachusetts Records_, vol. II, pp. 196, 199, 205, 241.
The tide of popular rights in the colonies was rising, however, and “all
the troubles of New England” were “not at the Massachusetts,” as Winslow
wrote to Winthrop, nor were high-handed proceedings wholly limited to
that commonwealth. In Plymouth, a written proposal, favored by many of
the inhabitants and of the deputies, was presented to the General Court,
“to allow and maintaine full and free tollerance of religion to all men
that would preserve the civill peace and submit unto government.” “You
would have admired [wondered] to have seen,” wrote Winslow, “how sweet
this carrion relished to the pallate of most of the deputies.”
“Notwithstanding it was required, according to order, to be voted,” the
Governor would not permit any vote to be taken; and the effort thus to
extend to others the same freedom that the leading founders of the
colony had availed themselves of for twelve years in Holland was
summarily suppressed.[521]
Footnote 521:
Letter of Winslow to Winthrop, in Hutchinson, _Papers_, vol. I, p.
174.
During the decade we have been considering, the struggle of Englishmen
at home for the preservation of their liberties against the incompetent
and reactionary rule of the second Stuart, had left that ruler but
little leisure to consider the American colonies. Except for occasional
and ineffectual efforts to retain some control over them by the home
government, they had been left free to work out their own theories,
untrammeled by any higher power. By 1640, the scattered settlements in
Maine, the towns in New Hampshire, the Bay Colony, Plymouth, the four
separate towns in what is now Rhode Island, Saybrook, the affiliated
towns of New Haven, and the river settlements of Connecticut, were
pursuing their several ways virtually as independent states, preëmpting
lands, erecting governments, treating with the natives, with each other,
and with the French and Dutch, as if they were sovereign powers. Nor was
there anything to prevent innumerable other petty states, each with its
few square miles of territory, and ruling according to its own ideas,
from arising over all New England, save as restrained by the jealousy of
those already in existence. If this tendency had not been restrained,
New England might have come in time to be a checker-board of tiny
republics, engaged in constant disputes over boundaries and other
relations at home, and, should the shield of England cease to protect
them, the prey of foreign foes abroad.
There were three possible methods of preventing this development of a
Puritan Balkans. England might assert her rights legitimately, and
endeavor to bring some sort of uniformity and order out of what might
otherwise become an impossible situation; one or another of the colonies
might, by force of greater strength, subdue its weaker neighbors, and
thus create one or several greater states; or, finally, a confederation
might be formed of all of them. Under the circumstances, the legal and
logical method would have been some sort of imperial control by the
mother-country, but that was out of the question unless the English
government was strong and united enough to enforce her will, and wise
and experienced enough to make it acceptable to the colonists. For the
present, that solution was impossible. Of the other two, the first would
naturally appeal to a strong and aggressive colony like Massachusetts,
while a confederacy would be favored by her weaker but no less
independent neighbors. Both the latter plans were tried, and the
intercolonial relations of the next quarter of a century were largely
the result of these two conflicting methods of unifying New England
being pursued simultaneously.
Owing to the death of Mason, and the failure of Gorges's plans for
Maine, the settlements north of Massachusetts were without a settled
government, and the inhabitants do not seem to have had the ability to
create a stable one for themselves, which was so marked a characteristic
of those in Massachusetts and Plymouth, Connecticut and New Haven. We
have already seen how Massachusetts, by an unwarrantable construction of
her charter, had begun to lay claim to all the land of New Hampshire and
Maine lying eastward of the most northerly source of the Merrimack,
although the whole course of the Crown and Council for New England at
the time of the grant showed that such a claim was absolutely untenable.
Nor, in the beginning, had the Massachusetts leaders dreamed of making
it,[522] and it was, in fact, as Professor Osgood says, “more clearly an
usurpation than was any later act of the crown which affected New
England.”[523] The decision, otherwise favorable to Massachusetts, of
the English Chief Justices in 1677, declaring the interpretation claimed
to be utterly without warrant, and reassigning the lands to the heirs of
the two original patentees, seems entirely just.[524]
Footnote 522:
_Cf._ letter of Emanuel Downing, already cited, asking for an
extension of the charter limits northward, in 1633. _Cal. State Pap.,
Col., 1675-76_, p. 74.
Footnote 523:
Osgood, _American Colonies_, vol. I, p. 377.
Footnote 524:
_Acts Privy Council, Colonial_, vol. I, pp. 723 _ff._ Palfrey's
statement that the charter, “literally interpreted,” endowed
Massachusetts with the lands claimed is hardly borne out by the facts.
_History_, vol. I, p. 587. _Cf._, however, Burrage, _Colonial Maine_,
p. 364.
Early in 1641, a dispute between church factions in Dover, headed by two
contending clergymen, gave Massachusetts a chance to intervene. Captain
Underhill, who had been banished from that colony at the time of the
Hutchinson controversy, was then on the Piscataqua, and, perhaps with an
idea of once more ingratiating himself with the home authorities, sent a
petition to the Massachusetts Court, asking aid for himself and his
party. Massachusetts at once dispatched a magistrate and two clergymen,
and the Underhill party were victorious, the clergyman heading the
opposing faction having opportunely turned out to be a personally
immoral character.[525] The Dover patentees, Warwick, Say, and the
others, who had purchased the patent in the interests of Massachusetts
some years before, now passed the grant, with slight reservations, to
that colony, which at once annexed the town.[526] A temporary government
was installed, and, two years later, it was agreed that the inhabitants
should have the privilege of freemen to manage their local affairs, and
to elect deputies, even though they were not church members.[527] Thus a
right not yielded to four fifths of her own citizens was granted to
those in her new possessions, and imperial ambition seems to have won
the first victory over Israelitish polity. This provision not only
disproved her former claim that civil order could not be maintained
without forced religious conformity, but, combined with the further
provision that the settlers in the newly annexed territory should be
subject only to local, and not to general, taxation, it tended to show
that she herself did not believe the claims she made as to the
interpretation of the charter.[528] If she really considered that the
territory now being seized under pretext of ownership was as indubitably
hers as that south of the Merrimack, why did she thus deprive herself of
the right of religious and fiscal control?
Footnote 525:
J. Winthrop, _History_, vol. II, pp. 33 _f._
Footnote 526:
_Massachusetts Records_, vol. I, p. 332; J. Winthrop, _History_, vol.
II, p. 50. Apparently Strawberry Bank (Portsmouth) was also annexed.
_Cf._ _New Hampshire Provincial Papers_, vol. I, p. 192.
Footnote 527:
_Ibid._, pp. 183 _ff._, 168.
Footnote 528:
_New Hampshire Provincial Papers_, vol. I, pp. 182, 184.
She next claimed and absorbed the town of Exeter, and her new claims,
extending to Maine, there came into conflict with those of Gorges and
the Pilgrims. The latter, indeed, had lately heard her state that she
was entitled to a part of the town of Plymouth itself, and she did
encroach upon the Plymouth territory.[529] A further enlargement of her
power to the south, and one obviously outside her jurisdiction, was next
made within the present limits of Rhode Island.
Footnote 529:
Bradford, _Plymouth_, pp. 367 _ff._
Samuel Gorton, from his heretical notions in religion, according to the
Gospel of New England, and his somewhat explosive efforts to defend
persons he thought oppressed by the colonial authorities, had led a
troubled and troubling life in Massachusetts, Plymouth, Portsmouth, and
Providence. Indeed, in his wandering course through the Puritan heavens,
he seems to have been as fatally followed by trouble as a comet by its
luminous tail. As he punctuated his career by denominating the
Massachusetts magistrates “a generation of vipers,” the Governor of
Plymouth, “Satan,” and the justice of Portsmouth, “a just-ass,” he can
hardly be said to have had an ingratiating way with the authorities,
although no crime could be laid at his door. The people of that day had
an insatiable passion for ploughing in the theological field, which was
always proving as full of unexploded shells as any on the modern
battle-front of France, and Gorton seems to have had a fatal facility
for turning these up. He had already been blown out of three colonies,
when, after some experience with him, the men of Providence decided that
he or they must leave. Finally banished, he made an Indian purchase, and
settled some miles to the south.
This, however, was not far enough for his former neighbors, who, in
1641, asked assistance from Massachusetts in ridding them of Gorton.
That colony refused to consider the request, unless Providence would
place herself under her jurisdiction.[530] The matter became complicated
by a dispute between Miantanomo and two other sachems, arising out of
Gorton's purchase, and the sachems also applied to Massachusetts. Both
they and the Providence men were received under her jurisdiction, and
the next move was to send a force of forty armed men to take Gorton and
his party into custody.[531] Even those opposed to him in Providence
suggested arbitration; but the Massachusetts clergy advised the
magistrates that this was not an “honorable” course, as the Gorton party
“were no state, but a few fugitives living without law or government,”
and “their blasphemous and reviling writings” could be “purged away only
by repentence and public satisfaction.”[532] The case was, therefore,
prejudged without a hearing, and the more summary method was taken of
trying to set fire to the log fort in which Gorton and his company had
taken refuge.
Footnote 530:
J. Winthrop, _History_, vol. II, pp. 69 _ff._; _Rhode Island
Historical Society Collections_, vol. II, pp. 191 _f._
Footnote 531:
J. Winthrop, _History_, vol. II, pp. 144 _ff._; _Massachusetts
Records_, vol. II, pp. 26 _f._, 40.
Footnote 532:
J. Winthrop, _History_, vol. II, pp. 168 _f._
It must be presumed that the ministers of Christ considered this as a
more “honorable” course than arbitration with “a few fugitives” from
their vindictiveness. The attack was made on a Sabbath morning, and even
the heretical Gorton was naturally surprised.[533] In receiving the
Indians under their jurisdiction, Massachusetts had required that the
savages should not profane that day by doing any work upon it, and that
they should not kill any man but upon just cause and authority.[534] The
attempt, immediately following, on the part of that colony's expedition,
to burn their fellow white men alive during church hours, because they
were too impatient to wait, may have struck their new savage subjects as
a little incongruous. Nine of the Gortonists were captured, taken to
Boston, and imprisoned. The clergy called for blood, and gave their
written opinion that all nine of the prisoners “deserved death by the
law of God.” In this unjust and inhuman decision, all the magistrates
but three concurred, and it was prevented from passing only by the
people's representatives among the deputies. Finally, the prisoners were
condemned to be distributed among seven towns, there to be “kept to
worke for their living, and wear irons upon one leg, and not to depart
the limits of the town, nor by word or writing maintain any of their
blasphemous or wicked errors upon pain of death.”[535] The sentence was
executed and the prisoners were kept in irons until the following year;
when the growing popular disapproval of the clergy's actions caused
their victims to be suddenly released and banished.[536]
Footnote 533:
Gorton, _Simplicities Defence_; Force Tracts, vol. IV, pp. 58 _ff._
Footnote 534:
J. Winthrop, _History_, vol. II, p. 147.
Footnote 535:
_Ibid._, vol. II, pp. 176 _f._; _Massachusetts Records_, vol. II, pp.
51 _ff._; Gorton, _Simplicities Defence_, pp. 66 _ff._
Footnote 536:
J. Winthrop, _History_, vol. II, pp. 188 _f._; Gorton, _Simplicities
Defence_, p. 83.
The Massachusetts authorities had thus utilized the request of one
faction in a settlement wholly outside their own limits, to extend their
jurisdiction. They had attempted, upon a charge of heresy directed
against persons living in another colony, to murder the entire body of
the opposing faction, after refusing the arbitration proposed by that
faction's own enemies. When the decree was finally softened to
banishment, this was held to include exclusion of the prisoners from
their former homes, now considered as part of the Bay Colony. They had
seized and sold the cattle and goods of the unfortunate people, to pay
the expenses of their so-called trial and illegal detention. In all
this, there had not been even the fallacious plea, as in the case of
Williams and Mrs. Hutchinson, that the civil peace of Massachusetts had
been endangered.
The outcome showed, however, that the cruel and immoral power of the
clergy and magistrates was coming to be opposed by a growing body of
healthy and liberal opinion. The bloody sentence demanded by them had
been refused by the people's leaders, and public opinion had finally
secured the reversal, within a year, of the milder one that had been
executed. The confusion of Gorton's own religious views, and his
incoherence in expressing them, could in themselves have won him little
popular support.[537] What the people were groping after was the right
of the individual to think and act for himself, so long as the state was
not endangered, as had been clearly expressed in the Plymouth petition.
The road was to be long and bloodstained, but there was now no doubt
that the people of Massachusetts intended to travel it, and that their
feet were at last set in the right direction.
Footnote 537:
Most of Gorton's writings are as incoherent as they are vituperative.
Age, however, seemed to clear his mind and style, and his letter to
Morton, in 1669, defending himself from the charges in the latter's
book, was clear and dignified. It is given in Hutchinson, _History_,
vol. I, pp. 467 _ff._
By 1640, although new arrivals had not been coming in so rapidly of
late, the population of the New England settlements had grown to about
eighteen thousand. Moreover, they had, on the whole, been prosperous. We
have already seen how even Plymouth, with its slender resources, its
poor soil, and its ill-chosen site, had yet achieved more than economic
independence, and we have noted the financial resources of New Haven.
The capital and numbers of Massachusetts were, of course, far larger
than those of either of the others, and it was estimated that that
colony had spent, in its first dozen years, nearly £200,000, or in our
day, perhaps, five million dollars, in making its settlement.[538]
Possessed of the unrestricted resources of a continent, and having
suffered no losses from Indians or foreign foe, New England was
apparently in a sound economic condition, when suddenly the crash came.
“Merchants would sell no wares but for ready money,” Winthrop wrote in
1640; “men could not pay their debts though they had enough, prices of
lands and cattle fell soon to the one-half, yea to a third, and after
one-fourth part.”[539] The Massachusetts General Court was soon called
upon to pass special legislation to assist debtors, as the suffering
became general.
Footnote 538:
Jeremiah Dummer, _A Defence of the New England Charters_ (London,
1721), p. 9.
Footnote 539:
J. Winthrop, _History_, vol. II, p. 21; _cf._ also pp. 8, 29, 37.
In spite of their enormous natural resources, the colonies, like all new
countries, lacked capital in the form of money. They borrowed heavily
from England and imported from her still more heavily in food, clothes,
and manufactured goods, without as yet having developed sufficient
export trade to enable them to meet their foreign bills.[540] The
inherent unsoundness of the position had been concealed, temporarily, by
the effects of the continued influx of new settlers on a large scale,
which had created a demand for all the colonists' surplus in the shape
of everything required by a planter during his first years. Prices of
both goods and lands advanced steadily, as a fire is blown into flame by
a forced draught. Suddenly the tide of immigration stopped entirely; the
exceptional demand, which had come to be regarded as normal, ceased;
English merchants naturally required payment on overdue accounts; and
all the familiar phenomena of an economic crisis became evident.
Footnote 540:
A very complete list of imports could be made up from the bills of
lading of the ships arriving in 1640, given in _Acts Privy Council_,
Colonial, vol. I, p. 268.
It is usually stated that emigration from England stopped because the
prospect there had become so much brighter for the Puritans that there
was no longer reason for leaving home.[541] This, however, by no means
meets all the requirements of the case. We have already seen that the
great majority of the people who had been coming to New England had not
joined the churches there, although in the main of Puritan stock. Nor,
at the time in question, did the Puritan leaders in England, in spite of
altered conditions, by any means relax their efforts to plant Puritan
colonies. In fact, such men as Say and Pym were more enthusiastic than
ever in their plans. These efforts, however, were no longer directed
toward New England, but in quite other directions.[542] By her religious
persecutions and peculiar church-membership requirement for the
franchise, Massachusetts had, little by little, antagonized all her old
friends at home, from the Earl of Warwick down, who had been constantly
calling the attention of her leaders to the fact that no more people,
not even Puritans, would go to her if she did not discontinue her career
of persecution. By that course she had already virtually excluded from
her portion of the English Empire all Englishmen not acceptable to her
clergy and a dozen of her leading laymen. This closed her ports to
almost the entire stream of English emigration, which continued large,
although somewhat changed in character, while the labor of her former
friends was now expended in diverting what remained of the Puritan
element itself in that stream away from, instead of toward,
Massachusetts.
Footnote 541:
This was Winthrop's version: _History_, vol. II, p. 37.
Footnote 542:
Newton, _Puritan Colonisation_, pp. 287 _ff._
In this connection, Winthrop wrote bitterly to Lord Say, complaining of
his efforts to induce settlers to go out from England to the Caribbean
instead of to New England. To this, Say made a long reply, rebuking the
authorities in the colony for their misuse of Scripture texts to further
their own views, and ended with the admonition that “for what you say of
the church not compatable with another frame of government, I pray putt
away that error ... the church beinge wholly spirritual, can subsist
with any forme of outward government.”[543]
Footnote 543:
_Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll._, Series V, vol. I, p. 302; J. Winthrop,
_History_, vol. I, pp. 399 _f._
Not only, however, did immigration to Massachusetts stop, but there
threatened to be an emigration from that colony to the English leaders'
Caribbean settlement. John Humphrey, one of the most influential of the
original planters, who had not prospered in the Bay, was made Governor
of the West Indian Puritan settlements, and, in 1641, sailed thither
with several hundred Massachusetts people.[544] Many others removed to
other colonies, and Winthrop relates, with evident relish, the
misfortunes which befell them as God's judgment upon them for
leaving.[545] That the influences checking the growth of Massachusetts
were not wholly due to general conditions is indicated also by the fact
that, while her population, in the next two decades, was considerably
less than doubled, that of New Hampshire was nearly tripled, Rhode
Island increased five-fold, and Connecticut four-fold.[546] The actual
numbers are even more striking than the percentages. Massachusetts,
starting the period with fourteen thousand, added less than ten
thousand, while the other three, beginning with but three thousand,
added nearly nine thousand. Connecticut's growth, moreover, was made in
spite of the fact that apparently Massachusetts made even greater
efforts to divert emigrants from that colony than were being made in
England to divert them from herself; so that Hooker, in complaining of
the methods employed by her citizens, was forced to write to Winthrop,
that “such impudent forgery is scant found in hell.”[547]
Footnote 544:
_Manchester Papers_, p. 424, cited by Newton, _Puritan Colonisation_,
p. 292; J. Winthrop, _History_, vol. II, p. 15. There was also some
movement the other way: 1200 persons are said to have gone from
Barbadoes to New England from 1643 to 1647. _Cal. State Pap., Col.,
1661-68_, p. 529.
Footnote 545:
J. Winthrop, _History_, vol. II, pp. 103 _ff._, 113, 156.
Footnote 546:
_Century of Population_, p. 9.
Footnote 547:
Letter in _Connecticut Historical Society Collections_, vol. I, pp. 4
_ff._
In the absence of any attempt by England to unify these scattered
settlements, the only tendency toward unification, as against the
centrifugal forces at work, had been the process of annexation and
attempted domination by Massachusetts. The growth of the frontier,
however, with the resultant Pequot war, had fostered a sense of unity in
the face of a common danger among those exposed to it. As Professor
Turner points out, in speaking of the colonies in general, particularism
was always strongest in those not so exposed, and the Indian frontier
“stretched along the western border like a cord of union.”[548] The
extension, northward and westward, had also brought the English into
immediate and hostile contact with both French and Dutch. Apparently as
a result of the somewhat inefficient joint action in the Pequot war, a
confederation between the colonies was informally discussed at Boston in
1637, and a draft prepared by Massachusetts the following year.[549]
Connecticut objected to one of the terms, the ground of her dislike,
Winthrop wrote, being her “shyness of coming under our government.”[550]
The smaller colony, however, had, within a few years, so far got over
her shyness as to be ready to “entertain a firm combination for a
defensive and offensive war, and all other mutual offices of love,” as
the records somewhat quaintly word it.[551] The decrease in immigration,
and the business panic throughout the colonies, may have helped to bring
them to a more realizing sense of their isolation from England, and of
the need of mutual dependence, which was greatly increased by a
threatened renewal of Indian hostilities in 1642. The latter is the sole
reason given by Bradford for the remarkable effort now made to combine
the colonies into a confederation, in regard to which all our
contemporary authorities are singularly silent.[552]
Footnote 548:
Turner, _Significance of the Frontier_, p. 92.
Footnote 549:
J. Winthrop, _History_, vol. I, pp. 283 _f._
Footnote 550:
_Ibid._, p. 342; _Connecticut Historical Society Collections_, vol. I,
p. 9.
Footnote 551:
_Conn. Col. Records_, vol. I, p. 31.
Footnote 552:
Bradford, _Plymouth_, pp. 416 _f._
The settlements, however, were well fitted to be thus joined in closer
bonds, in spite of minor differences. The country in which they were
planted formed a geographical unit, the natural boundaries of which were
emphasized by the human elements of hostile French, Indians, and Dutch.
The economic and social life, based upon the geographical, religious,
and political factors, was, in the main, remarkably homogeneous. Their
attitude toward English policy, and their trade-relations with the rest
of the empire, were very similar. There was not only no such clashing of
interests as divided them from the staple colonies of the West Indies,
but not even the minor differences that would have made impossible such
a combination between Pennsylvania and Virginia. United action in the
Indian war, and the religious Synod of the same year, had been the first
steps taken in the formation of the political machinery for
consideration of joint affairs. The way was smoothly paved, therefore,
for the establishment of a genuine union.
There was, however, one stumbling-block, which was the intense local
feeling and exaggerated sense of importance of the separate settlements.
The leaders in each of them must often have dreamed of what the future
might have in store for the little colonies in which they had cast their
lots, but it is impossible to say what those dreams may have been. They
could not have included the actual development of the present British
Empire or of the United States, the creation of each of which has been
largely dependent upon economic forces and scientific inventions beyond
the vision of any seventeenth-century mind. Whatever their dreams may
have been, in practice the leaders adopted an opportunist policy, which,
in general, may be described as the endeavor to keep from being
entangled with England without losing the value of her protection. That
any of them could seriously have thought that their individual colonies,
as such, could ever become powerful nations, is unlikely. Added,
therefore, to their policy regarding England was probably an opportunist
policy regarding their neighbors. The extent and nature of the New
England country had, by this time, become fairly well known, and the
rate of growth could be more or less accurately forecast. With extending
frontiers and but ill-defined territorial limits, disputes, already
occurring, could also be foreseen as bound to become more frequent and
more serious.
All of the colonies had shown the tendency toward expansion. Plymouth
had started her trading posts on the rivers of Maine and Connecticut;
settlements multiplied in Rhode Island; New Haven, from the meadows of
Quinnipiack, was soon planting on Long Island, and nearing the Dutch
boundaries on the Sound; while Connecticut, through her purchase of
Saybrook from the disappointed patentees in 1644,[553] and her planting
of towns westward even of New Haven's expansion, was rapidly stretching
east and west. Massachusetts had long adopted the definite policy of
extending her claims and control as fast and as far as possible. In the
race for land and power, her numbers, resources, and central position,
all gave her immense advantages, to which was added the no mean one of
an unscrupulous disregard for the prior rights of others. On the one
hand, then, the weaker colonies might hope to gain from union some
protection, not only from the Indian and the foreigner, but from the
growing aggressiveness of Massachusetts. On the other, that colony might
anticipate dominating the councils of the Confederacy, while free scope
was still left for her own aggrandizement.
Footnote 553:
_Conn. Col. Records_, vol. I, pp. 266 _ff._
Although they were far inferior to her as military powers, the
acknowledgment of Plymouth, Connecticut, and New Haven as of equal
political weight in the Union served largely to protect them against the
Bay Colony; but there was no such protection for Maine or for the towns
in Rhode Island, which were refused admission to the league. The
inhabitants of the former were not received, Winthrop wrote, because the
people of Agamenticus had recently “made a taylor their mayor, and had
entertained one Hull, an excommunicated person, and very contentious,
for their minister.”[554] These somewhat surprising reasons for refusing
representation to the few inhabitants of a territory equal in size to
all the rest of New England combined may be dismissed as not the true
ones. We are more likely to find the latter in that new interpretation
of her charter by which Massachusetts laid claim to all this vast tract,
which she formally annexed ten years later. To have allowed its
inhabitants representation in the proposed confederacy would have been
to acknowledge their right to be considered an independent colony, and
so would have placed awkward moral obstacles in the way of the manifest
destiny of God's elect. In regard to the Rhode Island plantations, in
spite of Winthrop's affection for Williams, the Bay Colony had always
exhibited a vindictive spite, the extreme virulence of which it is
somewhat difficult to understand, even after making all allowances for
the known facts. In 1640, under the administration of Dudley, the
Massachusetts General Court had received a letter from the magistrates
of Connecticut, New Haven, and Aquidneck, “wherein they declared their
dislike of such as would have the Indians rooted out,” and their desire
of “seeking to gain them by justice and kindness,” although carefully
watching them for any hostile intent. While the Massachusetts Court
voted its assent, it also insisted that the answer should be addressed
only to the magistrates of Connecticut and New Haven, formally excluding
any communication with those of Aquidneck “as men not to bee capitulated
withall by us, either for themselves or the people of the iland where
they inhabit.”[555] Silly bigotry, as well as intercolonial discourtesy,
could hardly go further than in this childish refusal even to discuss a
humanitarian project of importance and of common interest. The real
motive, however, may have been, as in the case of Maine, to leave the
way open to annexation by refusing to acknowledge any separate
government; and when, a year after the confederacy was formed, the Rhode
Island towns applied for admission, the answer, undoubtedly dictated by
Massachusetts, was an “utter refusall” unless they would “absolutely and
without reservacon submitt” to either Plymouth or herself.[556]
Footnote 554:
J. Winthrop, _History_, vol. II, p. 121.
Footnote 555:
J. Winthrop, _History_, vol. II, p. 24; _Massachusetts Records_, vol.
I, p. 305.
Footnote 556:
_Acts United Colonies_, vol. I, p. 23.
At the time of the formation of the Confederacy, Massachusetts had just
driven the entering wedge at Providence and absorbed New Hampshire, and
was engaged in encroaching upon the northern bounds of Plymouth and
Connecticut. The three smaller colonies, therefore, had everything to
gain by having their existence recognized by being admitted as political
equals in the league; while they were further protected by the third
clause in the Articles, which guaranteed the independence of each of
them, and even forbade the voluntary union of any colony with another
without consent of the Confederation. On the other hand, Massachusetts,
with the rich territories to the north and south—which she was already
absorbing—left open to her, had also much to gain by having a body that
could give some sort of legal approval to her illegal poachings; and her
own power, in extreme circumstances, could be counted upon to nullify
any adverse vote. These were probably the reasons which induced her to
enter a Confederation in which her two commissioners had only an equal
voting power with those of each of the three smaller colonies in the
governing board of eight.
Although the Articles of Confederation agreed that the four colonies
should thereafter be known as the United Colonies of New England, the
machinery set up was not that of a genuine federal state, but simply
that of “a firme and perpetual league of friendship and amity for
offence and defence, mutual advice and succor.”[557] Even the very
moderate powers granted the board of commissioners, which constituted
the only organ of the league, tended to decline, and it can hardly be
considered as other than a joint committee to consider matters of mutual
interest and to proffer advice to the general courts of the several
colonies. According to the Articles, however, the commissioners, when
they met at the regular annual meetings, were to be possessed of full
authority from their home courts to determine all military matters, it
being provided that no colony should engage in either offensive or
defensive war without the consent of at least six of the eight
commissioners. This was the majority required to decide all other
questions, and in case six could not agree, the matter in dispute was to
be referred back to the general courts.
Footnote 557:
The articles have been many times reprinted. The citations above are
from _Acts United Colonies_, vol. I, pp. 3 _ff._
The Confederation, which no more recognized the existence of England
than the “constitutions” of Connecticut and New Haven had done,
possessed no means of operating directly upon the people as individuals,
or of enforcing its will upon a recalcitrant colony. It was a useful
piece of machinery, but not a new government, and it failed to call
forth affection or loyalty from its members. It is impossible to say
what it might have developed into had the colonies remained permanently
as independent of England as they were until the restoration of the
Stuarts in 1660. The various results of that event did away, in time,
with the possibility, or the necessity, of such an organization. But,
during the Union's existence, it performed valuable service, not merely
in accustoming the colonies to act together, but also in concentrating
their resources in military emergencies, and, negatively, in saving the
smaller members from the encroachments of Massachusetts. As was
inevitable, that colony largely dominated its councils, and the attitude
that the commissioners adopted upon questions of civil and religious
polity was, in the main, that of Massachusetts rather than that of
Plymouth or Connecticut. In all that concerned the liberty of the
individual, the weight of their authority was, as a rule, thrown upon
the side of reaction, rather than of progress. The small extent of their
real powers, however, is indicated by the fact that the history of New
England under the Confederacy continued to be the history of
Massachusetts and her neighbors, and not that of the “United Colonies of
New England.”
CHAPTER X
CROSS-CURRENTS IN THE CONFEDERACY
From the formation of the Confederacy in 1643, until the restoration of
the English monarchy in 1660, the colonies were practically free to make
what use they could of an entire liberty of action, unhampered by any
serious attempt on the part of the British government to interfere with
them. The whole situation was favorable. The settlements had passed the
experimental stage, and were well rooted. If the decline in immigration
entailed certain disadvantages, on the other hand it relieved the
existing order from the necessity of absorbing new elements. The more
powerful colonies had signed articles of union, and no Indian war of any
magnitude was to interrupt their peaceful development. The economic
position slowly improved, and reached a sounder basis than before. Yet
the pages which record the story of those seventeen years are among the
least attractive in New England history. There is hardly an incident to
stir the imagination or to fire a noble pride. Freed from all restraint,
the best use that the colonies could make of their liberty was to
quarrel among themselves over boundaries, annexations, and taxes; to
contend, without honor, with the Dutch and French; to carry on
inglorious controversies with the savages; and to indulge in the only
example of bloody religious persecution that the United States has
known. Looking at the history of those years, however, from the
standpoint of the development of personal liberty, there were two
movements that redeem its otherwise disheartening aspects. One was the
bringing of order out of chaos in Rhode Island, where the settlers
proved that democracy and a broad toleration could, after all, be
combined with political stability. The other was the success of the
people of Massachusetts in securing the fundamental body of laws already
noted, and the unmistakable rejection of their theocratical leaders, lay
and clerical.
On the return of Acadia to France by the treaty of St. Germain, one
Claude de Razilly had been commissioned to rule the territory; and after
his death, three years later, d'Aulnay and de la Tour, both of whom had
possessed grants and trading posts within his jurisdiction, aspired to
replace him in the supreme command.[558] After various encounters, in
one of which d'Aulnay captured de la Tour, the latter, in 1643, arrived
at Boston with one hundred and forty men, and asked for help against his
rival. Winthrop, who was then governor, called together a few of the
magistrates and deputies, who assured de la Tour that, although they
could not grant him aid officially, he might have permission to hire
ships and engage volunteers for his expedition.[559] “The rumour of
these things soon spreading,” however, they encountered so much adverse
criticism that Winthrop consulted with additional members of the Court,
and, of course, the clergy. The question was long debated, whether it
was lawful for Christians to aid idolaters, and, somewhat more
pertinently, whether it was expedient in this particular case. The
debate is given at length by Winthrop, and affords an instructive
example of Puritan casuistry. A matter of so much importance should, of
course, have been referred to the General Court, and, also, under the
terms of the new Confederacy, to the Commissioners of that body. The
Boston merchants, however, seem to have brought powerful influences to
bear, and the little job in dollar-diplomacy was rushed through,
regardless of obligations or consequences. The question was not referred
to the Court, Winthrop wrote, because if it “had been assembled, we knew
they would not have given him aid without consent of the commissioners
of the other colonies, and for a bare permission, we might do it without
the court.”[560] Saltonstall and others afterwards wrote, strongly
condemning the action, urging that the real rights of the case had not
been known, that wars involving the subjects of another nation ought not
to be undertaken without the knowledge of the home government; and
brushed away the sophistical distinctions made by the Boston clique
between private permission by the colony's rulers and their official
sanction. “D'Aulnay, nor France,” they wrote, “are not so feeble in
their intellectuals as to deeme it no act of state.”[561]
Footnote 558:
_Cf._ Parkman, _The old Régime in Canada_ (Boston, 1911), pp. 1 _ff._
Footnote 559:
J. Winthrop, _History_, vol. II, pp. 128, 130.
Footnote 560:
_Ibid._, vol. II, pp. 135, 138. The agreement is in Hazard,
_Historical Collections_, vol. I, pp. 499 _ff._ Robert Keaynes, of the
“sow case,” was apparently interested in the venture.
Footnote 561:
Hutchinson, _Papers_, vol. I, p. 131.
[Illustration:
Page from John Winthrop's Journal
Original in Massachusetts Historical Society
]
The expedition, however, had been allowed to sail, carrying a somewhat
fatuous letter from Winthrop to d'Aulnay, stating that the Massachusetts
volunteers were, if possible, to effect a reconciliation, that they
possessed no commission, and that, if they did anything “against the
rules of justice and good-neighborhood,” they should be held
accountable.[562] In spite of this, some of the men attacked d'Aulnay's
plantation, burned his mill, killed his cattle, and plundered one of his
vessels of beaver skins. The latter were brought back to Boston and sold
at auction, and the proceeds were divided among the soldiers.[563] The
enterprise had been neither successful, glorious, nor profitable; and
when de la Tour again applied for help, in July of the following year,
Endicott, who had opposed the original participation of the colony, had
succeeded Winthrop as governor. The only result of de la Tour's suit,
therefore, was a proclamation of neutrality “till the next general
court,” and the dispatch of a letter to d'Aulnay offering satisfaction,
and likewise requesting it for his own earlier depredations on the
Penobscot.[564] In September, the Commissioners of the United Colonies
met and passed a resolution forbidding, in future, such acts of
volunteers as Massachusetts had connived at.[565]
Footnote 562:
J. Winthrop, _History_, vol. II, p. 151.
Footnote 563:
Paper signed by Saltonstall and Hathorne. _Ibid._, vol. II, Appendix
O, pp. 464 _ff._
Footnote 564:
_Ibid._, p. 220.
Footnote 565:
_Acts United Colonies_, vol. I, p. 22.
The struggle between the two rivals had not been limited to fighting in
America, but had been carried on at the French Court, where each had
striven for recognition. In this d'Aulnay had been successful, and the
ignominious end of the whole matter for the English was that
Massachusetts finally had to abandon her claims against him, and to make
him a gift as an acknowledgment of her own wrong in joining de la Tour's
expedition.[566] The affair, however, helped to strengthen the deputies
against the body of ministers and magistrates, whose unwarranted action,
as well as lack of statesmanship and even of common prudence, had been
mainly instrumental in bringing unnecessary humiliation upon the colony
without the consent of its representatives.
Footnote 566:
J. Winthrop, _History_, vol. II, pp. 318, 334 _ff._; _Massachusetts
Records_, vol. III, pp. 44, 74 _ff._; _Acts United Colonies_, vol. I,
pp. 56 _ff._
Nor did the Bay and other colonies derive much greater honor from their
diplomacy with the Dutch, one of the main results of which, indeed, was
to develop such a conflict of interests among themselves as threatened
to break up the Confederation. As we have already seen, it was an open
question whether England or Holland had the better title to the central
portion at least, of the territory claimed by the latter. As to the
title of the individual settlers, English and Dutch, on the Connecticut
and the Delaware, it would appear that the Dutch, who were there by the
authority of their home government, were in a much better legal position
than the English, who were mere squatters in the wilderness, without any
patent or charter rights. The New Englanders, however, outnumbered their
neighbors twenty to one, and the land in dispute was good. The advice of
the British Ambassador in the States General was, therefore, acted upon
with the consciousness of overwhelming force. “Crowd on,” he wrote,
“crowding the Dutch out of those places they have, but without hostility
or any act of violence.”[567] Steadily the advancing flood of the
English overwhelmed Dutch claims. It poured westward on Long Island and
along the Sound, up the Connecticut,—encircling the little fort of Good
Hope,—up the Housatonic, and stopped only a few miles from New Amsterdam
itself. A trading company formed in New Haven, but including capitalists
from Massachusetts, tried also to plant on the Delaware in despite of
both Dutch and Swedes.[568] The situation was bound to result in
constant causes for disputes, grave or trifling. At the bottom of all
was the desire of the English for the land, and the sense of injury and
inferior numbers on the part of the Dutch. Governor Kieft touched the
point, when, in reply to a letter of complaint from the United Colonies,
concerning some alleged misdemeanors by the garrison of the little Dutch
post at Good Hope, he wrote that “when we heare the inhabitants of
Hartford complayninge of us, we seem to heare Esops wolfe complayninge
of the lambe.”[569]
Footnote 567:
Letter from Sir William Boswell to Dr. Wright, 1642; _Conn. Col.
Records_, vol. I, pp. 565 _f._
Footnote 568:
For relations with the latter, _cf._ A. Johnson, _The Swedish
Settlements on the Delaware_ (Univ. of Pa., 1911), vols. I, pp. 380
_ff._, and II, p. 755; _New Haven Records_, vol. I, pp. 56 _f._, 106
_f._
Footnote 569:
_Acts United Colonies_, vol. I, p. 77.
The several attempts to plant forcibly on the Delaware were successfully
repulsed by the two nations already in possession there; and in 1646,
Kieft sent a protest to the New Haven magistrates against their settling
on the Housatonic. To this they replied that they could not imagine what
river the Dutch could mean, and unfairly offered to leave any dispute to
the English Parliament as arbitrators; while at the New Haven court, “it
was fully and satisfyeingly voted” that they would make good their
titles “at the trading house, and leave the issue of things to
God.”[570]
Footnote 570:
_New Haven Records_, vol. I, pp. 265 _f._ The Dutch spoke of the river
as the Mauritius. In their reply, the New Haven people stated that
they had built on the Paugusset “within our owne lymitts.”
Contentions, new and old, dragged along, embittering relations, and
filling a very large portion of the United Colonies' time and records.
Finally, after Stuyvesant had been governor for three years, he went to
Hartford to try to arrange an amicable settlement of all outstanding
grievances between the colonies of the two nations. The negotiations
were carried on in writing; and both then and in subsequent
correspondence, it must be confessed that, in dignity and courtesy, the
Dutch Governor shone by comparison with the English Commissioners. His
tone throughout was statesmanlike and dignified, while that of the
Puritans was frequently low, and, at times, insulting.
It was finally decided that each side should appoint two deputies to
negotiate a treaty, and Stuyvesant nominated, as his, two Englishmen,
then resident in the Dutch colony.[571] As a result of their
deliberations, a treaty was signed, in September, 1650, which should
have set the disputed matters finally at rest.[572] Most of the smaller
questions were passed over, while that of the Delaware was referred to
Europe. The explanation of the Dutch Governor as to a ship seized at New
Haven, some years earlier, was accepted as final,[573] and a definite
boundary line agreed upon, which gave to the English all territory,
except Fort Good Hope, lying eastward of Oyster Bay on Long Island and
of a line beginning four miles west of Greenwich on the mainland, and
running north, provided it came nowhere within ten miles of the Hudson.
Greenwich, also, was to remain to the Dutch, who were otherwise not to
build within six miles of the new boundary, which was to be referred to
England and Holland for ratification. Holland subsequently accepted
it,[574] but England never acted, as to have done so would have been to
recognize Dutch claims as valid, which she persistently refused to do.
Footnote 571:
_Acts United Colonies_, vol. I, pp. 186 _f._
Footnote 572:
_Ibid._, pp. 188 _ff._
Footnote 573:
_New Haven Records_, vol. I, pp. 333, 508; _Acts United Colonies_,
vol. I, pp. 112, 146.
Footnote 574:
_N. Y. Col. Docts._, vol. II, pp. 258 _f._
Nor, from their later correspondence, can we conclude that all the
English colonies themselves intended to accept the settlement as final,
or that they really desired a friendly end to the controversies. Within
a year after the signing of the treaty, New Haven attempted further
encroachments upon the Delaware, and, when stopped by Stuyvesant,
complained to the United Colonies, whose Commissioners wrote a bullying
letter to the Dutch Governor.[575] The following year, in Europe,
Cromwell forced war upon Holland, and New Haven and Connecticut felt
that their chance had come to make an end of their neighbor, whose chief
offense seems to have been the prior possession of lands the English
coveted. They claimed, indeed, to have information that Stuyvesant was
stirring up the Indians to attack them, and were, or pretended to be, in
mortal terror; but there is no substantial evidence that any such plot
existed, and when questioned about it, the sachems Mixim, Pesacus, and
Ninigret denied it in the most positive terms.[576]
Footnote 575:
_Acts United Colonies_, vol. I, pp. 214 _f._; New Haven’s complaint is
on pp. 210 _ff._
Footnote 576:
_Acts United Colonies_, vol. II, pp. 6 _ff._
Three commissioners, whom the United Colonies sent to New Amsterdam to
investigate the rumor, were met with fairness by Stuyvesant, who placed
no obstacle in their way for taking any testimony they wished, asking
only, which was reasonable enough, that the inquiries should be
conducted jointly. This the English refused, but set down all the gossip
they could gather, treated the Governor with great rudeness, and then
left, refusing at the last moment to wait even a few hours to receive an
answer Stuyvesant had prepared.[577] The fact may well have been that,
in view of the overwhelming odds against them, the Dutch were counting
upon using the Indians as auxiliaries in case they should have been
attacked; but there was nothing to indicate, what would have been
exceedingly unlikely, that they had been planning to assume the
offensive, even by savage proxy.
Footnote 577:
_Ibid._, vol. II, pp. 59, 65.
War, however, was ardently desired by both Connecticut and New Haven,
and Rhode Island, somewhat liberally interpreting orders from England,
started privateering on her own account against Dutch ships.[578]
Connecticut, on the strength of similar orders, hastily sequestrated the
Dutch fort at Good Hope, which she never again relinquished.[579]
Footnote 578:
_Ibid._, vol. II, pp. 54, 90, 92; _R. I. Records_, vol. I, pp. 261,
266, 271. During the course of the war, Cromwell sent Major Sedgwick
and Captain Leverett to the “United Collonyes” to see what aid he
could count upon in an attack upon New Amsterdam. _Mass. Hist. Soc.
Coll._, Series IV, vol. II, pp. 230 _ff._; _New Haven Records_, vol.
II, pp. 100, 107, 112; _Conn. Col. Records_, vol. I, p. 259; _Cal.
State Pap., Col., 1574-1660_, p. 390.
Footnote 579:
_Conn. Col. Records_, vol. I, pp. 254, 275.
Massachusetts, however, had no interest in the quarrel. The lands she
coveted did not lie in that direction, and she professed to be unable to
go to war save in a just cause.[580] Her moral stand might be considered
more sincere, were it not for the quite contrary position she
consistently assumed when her own interests were at stake. Her refusal,
however, undoubtedly prevented an act of great injustice, although her
action permanently weakened the Confederacy; for she claimed, in spite
of the obvious intention of the Articles, that the Commissioners had no
power to declare an offensive, but only a defensive, war. This
unwarranted construction was bitterly opposed by the other three
members, who properly claimed that, if any of the colonies had the
right, on occasion, to alter the Articles to suit herself, then the
league must necessarily “breake and bee dissolved.” “Whether this
violation proceed from some unwarrantable Scruple of Conscience or from
some other engagement of sperit,” they wrote, “the Massachusetts neither
expresse, nor will the Commissioners determine.”[581] In the wilderness,
men come to know one another well; and her neighbors' faith in the Bay
Colony's purity of motive had been too often sorely tried to permit
them, perhaps, to do her entire justice. War was declared in September,
seven of the eight Commissioners voting in favor of it, although
Massachusetts refused to be bound.[582] Her interpretation of the
Articles having been vehemently denied by the western colonies, she
turned to Plymouth, but failed to overawe her little neighbor, who
bluntly answered that the Articles “are so full and plaine that they
occation not any such queries.”[583]
Footnote 580:
_Acts United Colonies_, vol. II, pp. 56, 75, 80, 86.
Footnote 581:
_Acts United Colonies_, vol. II, p. 82.
Footnote 582:
_Ibid._, pp. 102, 108 _f._
Footnote 583:
_Ibid._, pp. 111 _f._
Peace having been declared in Europe, however, the war was not
prosecuted, and in the following year Massachusetts completely reversed
her position, and agreed to be bound by the Articles of Union in their
“literall sence and true meaning.”[584] The real motive for her refusal
to attack the Dutch may, perhaps, be found in that fear, on the part of
the East, of any rapid extension of the western frontier, which we have
already noted. Had the western colonies acquired the Hudson River and
the sources of the rich fur-trade possessed by the Dutch, the supremacy
of Massachusetts might readily have been lost to the younger colonies,
which, on the other hand, could be counted upon to remain subordinate to
herself in power and numbers if westward expansion were denied them. So
long as the balance remained undisturbed, or was altered only in her
favor, she could count upon the Confederacy to aid her own plans,
nullifying any decision adverse to her interests by her greater
strength, as she had just done. Having gained her point, it was,
therefore, to her advantage to restore the fullest authority to the
league; and the suggestion by her three colleagues, quoted above, that
her action might have been dictated by “some other engagement of sperit”
than conscientious scruples, would indicate that they perfectly
recognized the situation.
Footnote 584:
_Ibid._, p. 114.
During the decade and a half that we are now considering, there was
continual uneasiness among the savages, but no serious outbreak. Their
relations with the whites, however, were the subject of constant
negotiations, which, with the entries concerning the Dutch, absorb
almost the whole of the records of the Confederacy. The most striking
incident was one which, unfortunately, redounded but little to the
credit of the colonists.
In 1643, a quarrel broke out between Uncas and a sachem named Sequasson,
and after the English had ineffectually attempted to preserve peace
between them, Uncas attacked Sequasson, killing seven or eight of his
men, and securing considerable booty.[585] The defeated sachem was an
ally of the Narragansett chief Miantanomo, who requested permission from
the English for liberty to revenge himself upon the Mohegan. This was
granted, and Miantanomo, followed by a thousand warriors, fell upon
Uncas, who was supported by less than one half that number.[586] The
Mohegans, nevertheless were successful, and Miantanomo was taken
prisoner, through treachery. It will be recalled that Samuel Gorton had
bought his lands through the Narragansett chief from two of his sachems,
who had subsequently repudiated the transaction, and placed themselves
under the jurisdiction of Massachusetts. It will be remembered also that
Miantanomo, in spite of recent suspicions, had consistently been a
friend of the English, that he had sheltered Williams, when banished
from Massachusetts, and that, through the influence of the latter, the
Narragansetts had sided with the colonists in the Pequot war. Gorton now
unwisely tried to save the savage's life by writing a letter to Uncas,
threatening him should he harm his prisoner.[587] Uncas, upon its
receipt, hurried the captive to Hartford, to advise with the authorities
as to what course he should take. At Miantanomo's own request, he was
placed in custody of the English.
Footnote 585:
J. Winthrop, _History_, vol. II, p. 155.
Footnote 586:
_Acts United Colonies_, vol. I, p. 11.
Footnote 587:
J. Winthrop, _History_, vol. II, p. 158.
There had been rumors of a general rising of the natives in the
preceding year, and the Commissioners of the United Colonies, meeting at
Boston, after serious consideration decided that it would not be safe to
set the unexpected captive free; but they had no grounds upon which to
kill him. As usual, they turned to the church for advice, and, as usual,
that advice was for blood, “the most judicious elders,” who had been
consulted, unanimously agreeing “that he ought to be put to death.” Of
the four reasons for their decision as given by Winthrop, not one
justified the sentence. One of them, that he was “of a turbulent and
proud spirit,” was hardly a capital offense even in Massachusetts, nor
could the beating of one of his own subjects be thus construed. His
alleged heading of an Indian conspiracy had not been proved, and if the
authorities had really believed it, it is not likely that they would
have granted him formal permission to take the warpath with a thousand
warriors against another of their own allies. Opposed to the charges
were to be set the facts that, in the past, he had performed inestimable
service as a friend of the English, and that he was now in their hands
at his own suggestion, trusting in the white man's justice. He had not,
however, reckoned on the church, and it is impossible not to agree with
the often expressed surmise that the leaders of that institution
condemned him, not as the enemy of the English, but as the friend of the
heretic Gorton and the tolerant Williams.[588]
Footnote 588:
_Cf._, _e.g._, editor's note in J. Winthrop, _History_, vol. II, pp.
158 _f._
There had been no pretense of trial, and neither the accused nor any
witnesses had been summoned. Nor did the English execute the sentence,
which duty they entrusted to Uncas, who was promised protection against
the Narragansetts if he would perform it.[589] Uncas readily undertook
the work, and Miantanomo, probably cursing his folly for having ever
trusted a white man, was put to death. “That the Indians might know that
the English did approve of it, they sent 12 or 14 musketeers home with
Uncas to abide a time with him for his defence, if need should be”;
which shows how little real credence was placed in the story of a
general rising.[590] The savages could have made no complaint, had the
English from the beginning preserved a strict neutrality; but they had
not done so. They had given Miantanomo leave to take the war-path, and,
when he was captured, they had assumed the responsibility of seeing that
justice should be done. They had, nevertheless, observed none of its
forms, and had merely handed the prisoner back to his savage captor with
what amounted to orders for his death, without trial and without a
hearing. Aside from the injustice of the course pursued, it is difficult
to think of one more certain to turn the “proud and turbulent” spirits
of the slain man's thousand followers permanently against the English
settlers.[591] Nevertheless, for the present, in spite of a threatened
outbreak upon their part two years after the slaying of their chief, the
Indian relations of the colonists for long consisted mainly in efforts
to preserve the peace among rival native tribes and to collect
tribute.[592]
Footnote 589:
_Acts United Colonies_, vol. I, p. 11; J. Winthrop, _History_, vol.
II, p. 158.
Footnote 590:
_Ibid._, p. 162.
Footnote 591:
_Cf._ letter from the sachems to Massachusetts, 1644, in _R. I.
Records_, vol. I, pp. 136 _ff._
Footnote 592:
For the causes of the Narragansett “war” of 1645, _cf._ _Acts United
Colonies_, vol. I, pp. 50 _ff._ For the war with Ninigret, _Ibid._,
vol. II, pp. 101 _ff._
The disputes of the colonies, however, were by no means limited to those
with foreigners and savages. The union, which had been so seriously
threatened by the Dutch war, had earlier suffered another severe strain
in a controversy between Connecticut and Massachusetts over questions of
taxation. When the fort at Saybrook was bought from Fenwick by the
former colony, for the purpose of protecting and controlling the mouth
of the river, the contract provided that he should receive, in part
payment, certain tolls to be levied upon merchandise exported by all the
River Towns.[593] A few months later, the General Court passed a law
regulating the amounts of these duties and providing for their
collection.[594] The boundary line between Connecticut and Massachusetts
was still undetermined; but as the latter colony claimed Springfield,
which was under its jurisdiction, that town objected to being taxed by
Connecticut, and refused to pay the duties demanded.[595] The question
was referred to the Commissioners of the United Colonies by Connecticut
in 1647, though the fort had then been destroyed by fire. The objections
of Massachusetts, presented in writing, were not well taken, and one was
an absolutely false statement, Connecticut having no difficulty in
showing that the Bay Colony's contention that the question of a
river-toll had delayed the formation of the Confederacy by ten years was
palpably absurd and impossible.[596] Another contention, that the toll
was not levied upon the Dutch at Good Hope, was also of no import, for
the commerce of that tiny post was slight, and by taxing it,
international questions would have been raised, to no advantage.
Moreover, as the main value of the fort at Saybrook was to protect the
river from the Dutch, its upkeep could hardly be considered as a charge
of which that nation shared the advantages. The duties required were not
discriminatory, and Connecticut was merely asking that the other
permanent settlers up the river should share the same burden which she
imposed upon herself.
Footnote 593:
Conn. Col. Records, vol. I, pp. 119 _ff._, 266 _ff._
Footnote 594:
_Ibid._, pp. 189 _ff._
Footnote 595:
_Acts United Colonies_, vol. I, p. 80; _Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll._,
Series IV, vol. VI, p. 380.
Footnote 596:
_Acts United Colonies_, vol. I, pp. 89 _ff._
Although the justice of her claim was upheld by the Commissioners of New
Haven and Plymouth, Massachusetts refused to accept the decision as
binding, and threatened retaliation, which, in 1649, took the form of an
import duty on all goods from the three colonies entering at Boston
Harbor, which was then the main channel through which all business was
conducted with Europe.[597] The wording of the act made it obvious that
it was to punish the three smaller colonies for not having agreed with
herself; and the Confederacy's delegates resolved that “how fare the
premisses agree with the lawe of love and with the tenure and import of
the articles of Confederation, the Commissioners tender and recomend to
the serius Concideration of the Generall Court of the Massachusits.”
Wearied with her continuous rejection of their valid rulings for five
years, they also added that they “desire to bee spared in all further
agitations Concerning sprinkfield.”[598] Apparently, however, the
pertinacity of Massachusetts won the struggle, to which bitterness was
added by her persistent refusal, for seventy years, to acknowledge the
real location of her southern boundary line, which she had extended
slightly into Connecticut territory.[599] That “line” she had had
surveyed, in 1642, by the somewhat odd method of having two “skillful
artists,” as she called them, locate a point three miles south of the
Charles River, and then, in order to avoid the long walk across country,
sail around by the Sound, and ascend the Connecticut River to a point
which they agreed was in the same latitude as that from which they had
started. A map, a pen, and a ruler completed this arduous bit of
surveying work in the wilderness.[600] Unfortunately, it did not satisfy
Connecticut.
Footnote 597:
_Massachusetts Records_, vol. II, p. 269. This had been anticipated by
Connecticut; _Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll._, Series IV, vol. VI, p. 383.
Footnote 598:
_Acts United Colonies_, vol. I, p. 158.
Footnote 599:
_Ibid._, vol. I, pp. 151 _f._
Footnote 600:
C. W. Bowen, _The Boundary Disputes of Connecticut_ (Boston, 1882),
pp. 19, 53 _ff._
There was always a certain latitude, not astronomical, in the Bay
Colony's treatment of boundaries, however; and, in spite of the
reasonably strict definition of her own by her charter, the colony
slowly expanded, like a balloon filling with gas. We have already seen
how she had annexed New Hampshire, and, by her new interpretation of the
charter, laid claim to Maine. The state of affairs in England, during
the Civil War and Commonwealth, offered her the opportunity to make that
claim a reality; and by 1658, the entire province had been annexed, bit
by bit. In the midst of the civil commotions in the home country, the
royalist Gorges had died, and his heirs had had no chance to answer
their colonists' letters or to look after their affairs in America.
Godfrey was elected governor of the settlements about York, the
inhabitants there, “with one free and universanimous consent,” binding
themselves into a body politic,[601] while farther east, the feud
between Cleeve and Winter, the latter representing Trelawney's
interests, had been continued. Trelawney, a royalist like Gorges, was
imprisoned in England by the Parliament, and soon after died. Cleeve
went to England, procured the assistance of Alexander Rigby, who had
bought the questionable Lygonia patent, and secured from him a
confirmation and extension of his own holdings. This was three years
before the election of Godfrey at York in 1649, and Josselyn, who was
then representing the Gorges interests, disputed Cleeve's claims, and
both parties agreed to arbitration by Massachusetts. The jury failed to
find a verdict, and the dispute continued.[602] The following year, the
Commissioners of Plantations confirmed Rigby's patent, even enlarging
its interpretation, and so confined the Gorges territory to that south
of Saco.[603] Cleeve established a government within the now legal, if
not equitable, Lygonia grant, and the quarrel between him and Godfrey
seems to have been settled. Affairs promised to assume a more ordered
aspect, and in 1651 Godfrey sent a petition to Parliament, asking that
the inhabitants of Maine be declared “Members of the Common Wealth of
England,” and confirmed in their rights.[604]
Footnote 601:
_Farnham Papers_, vol. I, p. 266.
Footnote 602:
J. Winthrop, _History_, vol. II, pp. 314 _f._
Footnote 603:
_Ibid._, p. 391.
Footnote 604:
_Farnham Papers_, vol. I, pp. 267 _f._ Williamson says it was carried
to England by Cleeve; _History of Maine_, vol. I, p. 336.
Massachusetts saw her opportunity slipping, and decided to act. In May
of the following year, the General Court voted that the northern
boundary of the colony was a line running from sea to sea and passing
through a point three miles north of the most northerly section of the
Merrimack, sending out more “skilfull artists” to find the exact
latitude.[605] Godfrey vigorously objected, recalling to Massachusetts
the services he had rendered her in England when her charter had been
questioned, and denying the validity of her new claim.[606] His protest,
of course, was of no avail, and in May, 1653, Massachusetts sent a
commission, headed by Bradstreet, forcibly to require the submission of
the inhabitants at Kittery. After much debate among the settlers, they
agreed to submit, provided their conditions were accepted. This,
however, was “wholy denied by the comissioners, who told them they must
first submitt to the government, and then they should be ready to
affoord such liberties and imunities as they should think meete to
graunt.”[607] To this demand, as illegal as it was arrogant, the
settlers were forced to yield an unconditional assent; and Godfrey
returned to England, to add another, in the day of reckoning, to the
enemies of Massachusetts. The country was organized as the County of
York, and the towns incorporated with the same privileges as Dover.[608]
Later in the same year, the commission continued its journey, and Wells,
Cape Porpus, and Saco were likewise forced to submit.[609] Five years
later, in spite of repeated protests from Cleeve, the whole of Maine and
Lygonia were absorbed as far as Casco Bay, and the process of annexation
was complete.[610] Of the principalities that Mason and Gorges had spent
their fortunes to acquire, not a foot was left to their heirs.
Footnote 605:
_Massachusetts Records_, vol. III, pp. 274, 288.
Footnote 606:
The answer of Massachusetts and Godfrey's second letter are in Hazard,
_Historical Collections_, vol. I, pp. 564 _ff._ Godfrey's protest,
stating that £35,000 had been spent in settling, and that
Massachusetts had recognized the lawful jurisdiction of the settlers
for the past 20 years, is in Baxter MSS., _Doct. Hist. Maine_, vol.
IV, pp. 15 _f._
Footnote 607:
_Massachusetts Records_, vol. IV, pt. i, p. 123.
Footnote 608:
_Ibid._, pp. 123-26.
Footnote 609:
_Ibid._, pp. 158 _ff._
Footnote 610:
_Ibid._, pp. 175, 250, 312, 357, 360.
By her policy of annexation, Massachusetts had added over forty thousand
square miles to her territory; while by that of nullification, she had
patently shown that the bonds uniting the New England Confederacy were
but ropes of sand. Confederation was a failure and imperial control as
yet impossible. The unification of New England was progressing rapidly,
but it was a mere process of absorption by Massachusetts. Had there been
no hindrance offered by England to the movement, the fate of the other
colonies was amply foreshadowed. A single state, with its capital at
Boston, guided by the reactionary ideas of its leaders, would probably
have arisen, and much of the work already accomplished for the
enfranchisement of the individual by Connecticut and Rhode Island, as
well as the progress so far made by Massachusetts herself, might have
been lost.
Although her policy had met with so little real resistance in the north,
it received an unexpected check in the south, from the despised Rhode
Islanders, while the restoration of the monarchy in England was
permanently to save the independence of that colony and of Connecticut.
In view of the circumstances, that event, and the assertion of imperial
control which followed it, cannot be considered as so inimical to the
interests of liberty and the colonies as writers whose attention and
sympathy have been wholly devoted to Massachusetts have usually pictured
it. In spite of the many fine qualities of the Bay Colony, and the
services which she rendered in the settlement of New England, it was
fortunate that her career of aggrandizement was halted, for the United
States could ill afford to have lost the independent contributions made
to her intellectual and political life by the smaller colonies. Indeed,
it may even be questioned, if a single powerful, unscrupulous, and
aggressive state had come to occupy the whole of New England, and
possibly the Hudson Valley, whether the United States, as a federal
nation in its present form, would have come into existence at all. When
one considers the possibilities involved in a wholly different balance
of power among the colonies in the following century, the early career
of Massachusetts and the checks it encountered take on a larger
interest.
The four settlements about Narragansett Bay, whose extreme individualism
and disinclination to submit to any superior government have already
been noted, would probably have been exceedingly slow to form a
combination, had it not been for the danger to their existence,
threatened by their neighbors. Massachusetts had already set up claims
to a portion of the territory, and assumed jurisdiction over some of the
natives at the time of the Gorton affair in 1643; and contemplated more
aggressive action by attempting to secure a charter from the
Commissioners of Plantations, in the same year. While never legally
granted, this pretended patent was at first used by the colony to
bolster its claims.[611] At the same time at which Massachusetts was
trying to obtain that document, Williams, then in England for the
purpose, was also endeavoring to secure a patent which would enable the
settlements legally to resist encroachment. In this he was successful,
and, after that, “the country about us was more friendly,” he wrote,
“and treated us as an authorized colony, only the difference of our
consciences much obstructed.”[612] The charter named the towns of
Providence, Newport, and Portsmouth, and incorporated a vague territory
bounded in part by Plymouth, Massachusetts, and the Pequot River, as
“the Providence Plantations in the Narragansett Bay in New
England.”[613] The settlers were given the right to erect any form of
government which they might choose.
Footnote 611:
_Mass. Hist. Soc. Proceedings_, Series I, vol. V, pp. 398 _ff._;
Arnold, _History of Rhode Island_, vol. I, pp. 118 _f._; Osgood,
_American Colonies_, vol. I, p. 354.
Footnote 612:
_R. I. Records_, vol. I, p. 458.
Footnote 613:
_Ibid._, pp. 143 _ff._
The Narragansett Indians, after the death of Miantanomo, had agreed to
place themselves directly under the protection of the English crown; and
Gorton, who, after his release from Massachusetts, had gone back to
Warwick, was chosen by them to go to England and carry their submission
to the King.[614] In 1644, Plymouth had renewed her claim to Warwick;
but in the following year, twenty families from Braintree having
petitioned the Massachusetts General Court for permission to settle on
Gorton's lands, the Court had granted them ten thousand acres there, and
arranged for the organization of a town.[615] A Plymouth settler
objected, however, when the party arrived, and the new planters
dispersed to other places. At the same meeting of the court at which the
Braintree men were granted their land, a letter was ordered sent to
Williams, stating that Massachusetts had received a charter for
Narragansett Bay, and ordering him to desist from exercising any
authority.[616]
Footnote 614:
_Cal. State Pap., Col., 1574-1660_, p. 326; _R. I. Records_, vol. I,
pp. 134 _ff._
Footnote 615:
Cited by Arnold, _Rhode Island_, vol. I, p. 159; _Massachusetts
Records_, vol. III, p. 49; J. Winthrop, _History_, vol. II, p. 308.
Footnote 616:
_Massachusetts Records_, vol. III, p. 49; _R. I. Records_, vol. I, p.
133.
Nothing had been done by the Narragansett towns to combine under their
patent, until May, 1647, when a meeting attended by freemen from all
four, was held at Portsmouth, at which it was voted to give Warwick the
same privileges as Providence.[617] The new government derived directly
from the people, and not from the towns, those present also agreeing
that it should be “democraticall, that is to say, a Government held by
the free and voluntarie consent of all, or the greater parte of the free
Inhabitants.”[618] Legislation was, in the main, to be initiated by the
people in town meeting, and not by the Assembly, which latter was to be
a representative body, consisting of six delegates from each township.
Such bills as might be initiated in the Assembly, or General Court, were
required to be submitted to the four towns at their meetings, the whole
legislative system thus being “a crude combination of initiative and
referendum.”[619]
Footnote 617:
_Ibid._, pp. 147 _ff._
Footnote 618:
_Ibid._, p. 156.
Footnote 619:
Osgood, _American Colonies_, vol. I, p. 358.
Meanwhile, Gorton had obtained a letter from the Commissioners for
Plantations, granting him safe conduct through Massachusetts, and
allowing him to resettle upon his lands without molestation, until the
disputed title should be decided.[620] To this, Massachusetts returned
an answer defending her actions in the case and her refusal to allow of
appeals to England; but Gorton was permitted to pass through her
territory on his way to Warwick.[621] The settlers there, however, were
much troubled by the Indians, whom Massachusetts claimed as under her
jurisdiction; and after receiving two complaints from the Warwick
people, the Commissioners of the United Colonies finally returned answer
that they were ready to undertake the settlement of the question as to
“under what Colonie youer Plantation doth fall.”[622] The following
year, 1650, Massachusetts, by agreement with Plymouth, acquired all
rights which that colony might possess about Warwick, but the
Commissioners of the United Colonies refused to sanction the
transfer.[623]
Footnote 620:
_R. I. Records_, vol. I, pp. 367 _ff._; J. Winthrop, _History_, vol.
II, p. 333.
Footnote 621:
_Massachusetts Records_, vol. III, pp. 95 _ff._; J. Winthrop,
_History_, vol. II, pp. 360 _ff._
Footnote 622:
_Acts United Colonies_, vol. I, p. 150. The previous complaint, and
the Commissioners' mild rebuke to the Indians, are on p. 111.
Footnote 623:
_Massachusetts Records_, vol. III, pp. 198 _f._; _Acts United
Colonies_, vol. I, pp. 170 _f._; _Massachusetts Records_, vol. III, p.
216.
As before, however, there was a party at Patuxet working in the
interests of the Bay Colony, and in 1651, certain settlers there
appealed to her for protection against taxes levied upon them.
Massachusetts, still claiming jurisdiction, wrote to Williams, requiring
that the government refrain from taxing the residents of Warwick, and
stating that in case it refused to comply, Massachusetts would seek
satisfaction “in such manner as God shall put into theire hands.”[624]
There was no doubt what this meant.
Footnote 624:
_Ibid._, p. 228, and vol. IV, pt. i, p. 47.
There was, moreover, additional trouble in store for the distracted
settlements. William Coddington, one of the original settlers at
Aquidneck, had treacherously gone to England, and there procured a
commission appointing him Governor of Rhode Island, his territory thus
including the two towns of Portsmouth and Newport.[625] This would have
disrupted the union, and have left the mainland towns a prey to
Massachusetts. The four towns, being now at last closely united in aim
by the common danger, sent Williams and Clarke to England, to protest
against Coddington's action; and, largely through the influence of
Williams's friendship with Vane, they were entirely successful.
Coddington's commission was withdrawn; Williams obtained a safe conduct
through Massachusetts, and brought a letter from Vane urging the
colonists to unite peaceably and to avoid tumult and disorder.[626] In
1654, the towns reunited by formal action, and two years later,
Coddington submitted to the authorities.[627] In 1658, Massachusetts at
last resigned her pretensions,[628] while, to guard against any such
troubles in future as had been brought about by that colony's faction in
Patuxet, Rhode Island passed a law, somewhat later, that, if any citizen
should attempt to place his lands under the jurisdiction of another
colony, they should be forfeited.[629]
Footnote 625:
_Cal. State Pap., Col., 1574-1660_, p. 354.
Footnote 626:
I. Backus, _History of New England with particular Reference to the
Denomination of Christians called Baptists_ (1871), vol. I, pp. 223,
232; Hazard, _Historical Collection_, vol. I, p. 495.
Footnote 627:
_R. I. Records_, vol. I, pp. 278 _ff._, 327.
Footnote 628:
_Massachusetts Records_, vol. IV, pt. i, p. 333.
Footnote 629:
_R. I. Records_, vol. I, p. 401.
The government, however, was by no means through with Massachusetts, nor
with its other neighbor, Connecticut, both of whom were soon to lay
claim to the soil in another direction. The Pawcatuck River, which is
the present western boundary of the state, had also been the dividing
line between the Narragansetts on the east and the Pequots on the west;
and after the destruction of the latter, both Connecticut and
Massachusetts had claimed the Pequot country by right of conquest. In
spite of attempts to divide the spoil between them, the dispute dragged
along, with clashings of interests and of jurisdiction.[630]
Massachusetts, however, not content with claiming a large part of the
country west of the Pawcatuck as a reward for her share in the war, was
also constantly endeavoring to establish her claims to the rich tract
lying between the east bank of that river and Narragansett Bay, known as
the Narragansett country. In spite of her defeat in the Gorton episode,
she continued her efforts, and in 1659, a year after Southertown, the
present Stonington, had been declared by the Massachusetts Court to be a
part of Suffolk County in that colony,[631] the Atherton Company was
formed, mainly by Massachusetts land-speculators, to secure title to the
Narragansett lands.[632] A grant was obtained by the company from one of
the sachems, and, in the following year, four others, in order to meet a
fine which had been imposed upon them by the United Colonies, executed a
mortgage deed of the entire Narragansett country to the Atherton
Company, except such parts as might have already been granted, the
Indians having six months in which to redeem the pledged lands, which,
of course, they failed to do.[633]
Footnote 630:
_Acts United Colonies_, vols. I, pp. 19, 79, 97, and II, pp. 209, 228;
_R. I. Records_, vol. I, pp. 451 _ff._, 457; _Conn. Col. Records_,
vol. I, pp. 570 _ff._; Bowen, _Boundary Disputes of Connecticut_, pp.
31 _ff._; _Massachusetts Records_, vols. II, p. 160, and IV, pt. i, p.
315.
Footnote 631:
_Ibid._, vol. IV, pt. i, p. 353.
Footnote 632:
The members included Gov. Winthrop of Connecticut, and Richard Smith;
_R. I. Records_, vol. I, p. 464.
Footnote 633:
_Acts United Colonies_, vol. II, p. 248; _R. I. Records_, vol. I, pp.
465 _f._
Massachusetts herself had no valid claim to any of the territory, to
which, on the other hand, Rhode Island was justly entitled under her
charter, which had named the “Pequot River and Country” as the western
boundary.[634] In October, 1661, a clash occurred between Rhode Island
citizens claiming lands at Stonington and the Massachusetts authorities,
three Rhode Islanders being carried off to Boston, and imprisoned.[635]
The Rhode Island government protested, and denied the pretensions of
Massachusetts to the disputed territories, and herself claimed
jurisdiction over the lands owned by the Atherton Company.
Massachusetts, some months later, renewed the old fiction of her
Narragansett patent, and asserted, what she must have known to be false,
that under it she had a valid title to “all that tract of land, from
Pequot River to Plymouth line,” and ordered the Rhode Island authorities
to desist from exercising any government within their limits.[636]
Footnote 634:
As we have already noted, the bounds were vaguely stated, but this
western one was clear enough; _Ibid._, p. 144.
Footnote 635:
_Ibid._, pp. 455 _f._
Footnote 636:
_Ibid._, pp. 469 _ff._, 461.
The troubles between Rhode Island and Massachusetts, between
Massachusetts and Connecticut, and between Connecticut and Rhode Island,
were thus rapidly approaching the point at which a general intercolonial
war might easily have resulted in the annihilation of the smallest
colony, and a possible quarrel over the spoils by the two victors,
already bitterly quarreling over the spoils of a war of twenty years
earlier. The disgraceful spectacle of two colonies, planted in the
wilderness ostensibly for the glory of God, and still pretending to be
guided by his laws, annihilating a weaker neighbor in order to annex her
harbors and rich lands, was fortunately prevented by the reassertion of
imperial control by England.
Meanwhile, the little Rhode Island commonwealth had established its
internal affairs upon a firm and orderly basis, and in spite of the dire
forebodings, and every possible impediment thrown in his way by
Massachusetts, Williams had finally succeeded in his effort to prove
that civil and religious liberty was not incompatible with a
well-ordered state. Against all her enemies, without and within, the
colony had won her way to intellectual freedom, and had advanced along
the path in which it has been the glory of the nation to follow, while
the restoration of the monarchy in England intervened to save her from
further molestation from her powerful Puritan neighbors, and enabled her
to pursue her chosen ways in peace.
CHAPTER XI
THE DEFEAT OF THE THEOCRACY
The same decade and a half, the political events of which we traced in
the last chapter, was to witness also religious movements of utmost
importance. The firm establishment of the government of Rhode Island,
based upon religious liberty, and the preservation of the independence
of that colony and of its democratic neighbor, Connecticut, were matters
of profound import in the political and intellectual life of America.
Not less so was the struggle between the leaders of the theocracy and
the growing liberalism of the people of Massachusetts. As usual, the
political and religious movements were inextricably intertwined, and the
same conditions that brought forth the political disturbance over the
petition of Dr. Child and his associates, in 1645, were responsible for
the most important step taken in the ecclesiastical organization of the
theocracy some months later.
That petition had called attention to undoubted evils and injustices in
the political and religious régime in Massachusetts; and however
effectually the government might silence the protesting leaders, the
underlying causes were so widespread as to necessitate some action in
regard to them. Owing to the church-membership test for the franchise,
the unenfranchised class was so large, and the disadvantage under which
it labored was so palpably unjust, that the demand for reform was
growing steadily louder. Not only had there been from the very beginning
a considerable element in the population which, under no circumstances,
cared to join the New England churches, but there was also a large one
which would have been glad to do so, had the process not been made so
difficult for them. It was not enough that a person should believe in
the doctrines of the Church, that he should desire to live a godly life
and be in communion with it, but he was also required to have
experienced some special motion of God in his heart, by which he had
been convicted of his sin, and become regenerate. Of that conversion, he
was further obliged to make a public declaration before the
congregation, describing the particular manner in which he had thus felt
the workings of the spirit within him. Many blameless Christian men and
women did not feel that they could discover any such extraordinary
change in their lives as their rulers demanded; and modesty and a
natural reticence prevented many more from attempting the trying ordeal
of publicly detailing such an intimate spiritual experience.[637]
Failing that, however, they were debarred from Christian communion and
from all voice in the civil government, and their children were also
denied baptism and participation in the life of the Church. As in
Massachusetts no churches were allowed except such as partook of the
“New England way,” it followed that those who could not join them were
politically disfranchised, and that they and their children were cut off
from the advantages of Christian fellowship and discipline.
Footnote 637:
Lechford, _Plain Dealing_, pp. 66 _ff._
In so far as the resultant political disabilities were concerned, there
were two ways in which the situation might have been remedied. The first
and, according to modern ideas, the natural one would have been to do
away with the religious qualification for the franchise. This was,
theoretically at least, the method of Plymouth and Connecticut and Rhode
Island, and of the Bay Colony in so far as its possessions in Maine were
concerned. Nevertheless, it did not commend itself to the Massachusetts
leaders, and for that reason, and also to meet the religious features of
the case, a second method was favored by many, of making less rigid the
requirements for admission to the church. Of the two methods, the latter
would, of course, be more acceptable to the clergy, not as a step
forward, but as the lesser of two evils. They were, in fact, at that
very time planning a more formal organization of all the churches, and
the establishment of a uniform practice among them.[638] The creation of
such a standard can hardly be considered as consistent with the
principles in which Congregationalism had originated; but the Church in
Massachusetts had become as completely a state church as the Anglican
had ever been in England.[639]
Footnote 638:
J. Winthrop, _History_, vol. II, p. 323.
Footnote 639:
_Cf._ Walker, _Creeds_, pp. 166 _f._
In 1646, soon after the presentation of the Child petition, some of the
Elders presented a bill to the General Court, asking that body to call a
synod at the end of the summer, to consider these various problems. The
bill was promptly passed by the magistrates; but the deputies demurred,
denying that the civil authorities had power over the ecclesiastical. It
was conceded, however, that the call might go out as a request and not
as a command.[640] According to the notice, the synod was to agree “upon
one forme of government and discipline,” and to consider whether “more
liberty and latitude” might be yielded in the matters of church
membership and baptism.[641] When their labors should be finished, the
result was to be submitted to the General Court, to receive “such
approbation as is meete.”[642] When the synod met, the churches of
Boston and Salem refused to join, partly because they believed that it
was intended to bind the liberty of churches by the passage of
ecclesiastical laws by the General Court, “whereby men should be forced
under penalty to submit to them.” In view of a point to be discussed
later in the chapter, Winthrop's account of the origin of the objections
is interesting. The principal men who raised them, he wrote, were some
“who came lately from England, where such a vast liberty was allowed,
and sought for by all that went under the name of Independents, not only
the anabaptists, antinomians, familists, seekers, etc., but even the
most godly and orthodox, as Mr. Goodwin, Mr. Nye, Mr. Burrows, etc., who
in the assembly there had stood in opposition to the presbytery, and
also the greater part of the house of commons, who by their
commissioners had sent order to all English plantations in the West
Indies and Summers Islands, that all men should enjoy their liberty of
conscience, and had by letters intimated the same to us.”[643] Some
weeks were consumed in endeavors to change the opinions of the two
churches, and when, after much difficulty, that was finally
accomplished, there was little time left for the work of the synod,
which adjourned in September, to meet the following June. It was not
until midsummer, 1648, however, that, after another adjournment, it
finally completed its labors.
Footnote 640:
J. Winthrop, _History_, vol. II, pp. 323 _f._
Footnote 641:
_Massachusetts Records_, vol. III, pp. 71 _f._
Footnote 642:
_Ibid._, p. 72.
Footnote 643:
J. Winthrop, _History_, vol. II, p. 329.
During the two years which it had been in session, Cromwell and the
Independents in England had removed all fear for Massachusetts of
Presbyterian or other interference from that country, and the temporary
alarm of the leaders had subsided. The question of a more liberal
policy, therefore, fell into the background, and the synod occupied
itself with the formulation of a strict polity by which innovation might
be resisted. Agreement with the recent declaration of Parliament in
matters of doctrine was voted by adopting, with certain reservations,
the Westminster Confession of Faith; but the suggested religious
toleration was, of course, denied.[644] Quite on the contrary, in fact,
the Cambridge Platform, as the order of discipline adopted has always
been called, provided that the full power of the state should be used to
enforce obedience and conformity to the rule and decisions of the
priesthood. “Idolatry, Blasphemy, Heresy, Venting corrupt and pernicious
opinions,” the Platform read, “are to be restrayned and punished by
civil authority. If any church one or more shall grow schismaticall,
rending it self from the communion of other churches, or shall walke
incorrigibly or obstinately in any corrupt way of their own, contrary to
the rule of the word; in such case, the Magistrate is to put forth his
coercive power, as the matter shall require.”[645] What these early
American persecutors, drunk with their own conceit, were to think the
“matter shall require,” when other men refused to accept their personal
interpretation of the mind and ways of Almighty God as infallible, will
be only too clearly shown in the course of this chapter.
Footnote 644:
“Cambridge Platform,” in Walker, _Creeds_, p. 195.
Footnote 645:
Sections 8 and 9 of chap. xvii, of “Cambridge Platform”; _Ibid._, p.
237.
When the Platform was presented for ratification by the General Court,
through the towns, it seems to have met with considerable opposition on
the part of the deputies. The magistrates, owing to their customary
close working agreement with the ministers, approved of it unanimously;
but the deputies, representing public opinion rather than the oligarchy,
repeated their opposition of several years earlier. When, in 1645, new
laws had been proposed for the punishment of heretics, a brief entry in
the records tells of the struggle at that time. “The Howse of Deputies,”
so it reads, “cannot concur with our honored magistrates in their bill
to punish excommunicate persons.”[646] They were defeated, however, and
the next year a long act was passed for the purpose.[647] Although the
Cambridge Platform had been adopted by the synod in 1648, and had been
considered several times by the General Court, the deputies of many of
the towns, even three years later, still professed themselves unable to
“see light to impose any forms as necessary to be observed by the
churches as a bindinge rule.”[648] When it was finally passed by the
Court, in October, 1651, fourteen of the deputies still refused to
concur, and their names, an honored roll, are inscribed in the margin of
the records.[649] The towns they represented were Boston, Salem,
Braintree, Watertown, Roxbury, Wenham, Reading, Sudbury, Weymouth, and
Hingham, in Massachusetts, and Hampton in New Hampshire.[650]
Footnote 646:
_Massachusetts Records_, vol. III, p. 16.
Footnote 647:
_Ibid._, p. 99.
Footnote 648:
_Ibid._, p. 236.
Footnote 649:
_Ibid._, p. 240.
Footnote 650:
Walker, _Creeds_, p. 188 _n._
The Platform represented no mere abstract doctrine. The whole history of
the oligarchy, thus far, indicated that the clauses regarding heresy and
schism were not intended to remain dead letters. The new relations of
the churches to one another, and the strengthened combination of the
civil and ecclesiastical authorities, mark the high point attained by
the theocracy in its organized opposition to liberty of thought. It had
been growing steadily narrower and more intolerant, more insistent upon
the extirpation of every idea, religious or political, that disturbed
its own control over the minds and lives of men. Unfortunately, at the
very time when new power for evil was thus being placed in its hands by
the action of the synod and the General Court, the more conservative
leaders, both of Massachusetts and Connecticut, were lost to their
communities by death, and the dangerous weapons were to be wielded by
two of the most bigoted and blood-thirsty fanatics whom either Old or
New England had produced.
Thomas Hooker died in 1647, as the work of the synod was beginning, and
John Winthrop in 1649, as it was ending. There is no comparison in the
debt that the political thought of America owes to the two men, whose
ideas have already been contrasted on an earlier page. Hooker led the
way along which the people of the United States were to follow, while
Winthrop was engaged in the attempt to found a state in a politically
impossible form. In spite of his inestimable services in the beginnings
of the colony, there was no originality in his contribution to thought,
and his subservience to the demands of the theocracy had been
foreshadowed by his statement in early manhood that he so honored a
faithful minister that he “could have kissed his feet.”[651] Of high
nobility of character, gentle, forgiving, frequently kindest to those
from whom he differed most, there was little in his nature of the born
persecutor. Led into acts of intolerant zeal by the ministers whom he so
devoutly followed, there is considerable probability in the story
related by Hutchinson, that when on his death-bed, being pressed by
Dudley to sign a warrant for the banishment of a heretic, he refused,
saying that “he had done too much of that work already.”[652] His
portrait depicts a face of gentleness rather than of strength. His
unquestioned integrity, his modesty, and his self-sacrificing devotion
to the interests of the colony as he saw them, amply fulfilled the high
opinion which the original undertakers of the enterprise had formed of
him, although, as in the case of most of the leaders, the effect upon
mind and character of the transplanting to America was not wholly a
happy one. “He was of a more catholic spirit than some of his brethren
before he left England,” wrote Hutchinson; “but afterward he grew more
contracted, and was disposed to lay too great stress upon indifferent
matters.”[653]
Footnote 651:
R. C. Winthrop, _J. Winthrop_, vol. I, p. 61.
Footnote 652:
Hutchinson, _History_, vol. I, p. 142.
Footnote 653:
Hutchinson, _History_, vol. I, p. 142.
The same effect had been felt in the case of John Cotton. The most
tolerant, as he was one of the ablest, of the Massachusetts divines, we
have already seen how he had started upon the true path when, dismayed
by the universal ecclesiastical clamor raised by the Antinomian
controversy, he drew back, like Winthrop, and ever after submitted to
smaller men. Nevertheless, his death, some months after the final
adoption of the Cambridge Platform, removed the last of the three men
who by inclination and influence might have done something to stay the
theocracy from the course into which it was soon to throw itself
headlong. In place of Winthrop and Cotton, its leaders became Endicott
and Norton. Able, stern, fiercely bigoted, absolutely convinced of their
own infallibility in interpreting the word of God, undeterred by doubt,
and unrestrained by pity, they were unwittingly to water the seeds of
liberty with the blood of their victims.
In the midsummer of the year in which the Platform was finally adopted
by the Court, John Clarke, one of the ablest citizens of Rhode Island,
Obadiah Holmes, and John Crandall, as representatives of the Baptist
church of Newport, arrived at Lynn to visit an aged member of that
church, who was too infirm to make a journey himself.[654] In 1644, a
law had been passed punishing with banishment anyone who should openly
or secretly speak against the orthodox Massachusetts doctrine regarding
baptism; and the three Baptists were at once arrested.[655] Clarke was
fined £20, Holmes £30, and Crandall £5, in default of which they were to
be whipped. The spirit of the court that tried them is vividly shown by
two incidents as told by the prisoners themselves. Clarke, having asked
by what law he was punished, the penalty not being that prescribed by
the ordinance of 1644, relates that Endicott “stept up to us, and told
us we had denyed Infants Baptism, and being somewhat transported broke
forth, and told me I had deserved death, and said he would not have such
trash brought into this jurisdiction.”[656] Holmes, describing his own
trial, wrote that, when receiving sentence, “I exprest myself in these
words; I blesse God I am counted worthy to suffer for the name of Jesus;
whereupon John Wilson (their pastor as they call him) strook me before
the Judgment Seat, and cursed me, saying, the Curse of God, or Jesus goe
with thee.”[657]
Footnote 654:
Newport Church Papers, cited by Backus, _Baptists_, vol. I, p. 178.
Footnote 655:
Backus, _Baptists_, vol. I, p. 198 _n._
Footnote 656:
John Clarke, “Ill Newes from New England” (London, 1652), in _Mass.
Hist. Soc. Coll._, Series IV, vol. II, p. 33.
Footnote 657:
_Ibid._, p. 47.
Crandall, who had figured but little in the proceedings, was released on
bail; while, without his knowledge, some unknown well-wisher paid
Clark's fine. Holmes, however, refused to pay his fine or allow others
to pay it for him, and insisted upon the sentence being executed in its
full barbarity. Thirty strokes, with a three-corded whip, were laid upon
his bare back. Two bystanders who, moved by pity, had the temerity to
take the prisoner by the hand as he left the whipping-post, were
themselves arrested and sentenced to pay forty shillings or be
whipped.[658] To one of them, who affirmed to Endicott that he believed
Holmes was a godly man and “carried himself as did become a Christian,”
the Governor threatened that “we will deal with you as we have dealt
with him.” “I am in the hands of God,” the prisoner replied.
Footnote 658:
The Court that passed the sentences was composed of the magistrates
only.
The following year, Clark went to England with Williams in regard to
the Coddington matter in Rhode Island, and, while there, published
his account of the treatment the Baptists had met with in
Massachusetts.[659] As so often before, the intolerance of the new
country was severely criticized by its friends in the old.[660] “It
doth not a little grieve my spirit,” wrote Saltonstall to Cotton and
Wilson, “what sadd things are reported dayly of your tyranny and
persecution in New England.... These rigid wayse have layd you very
lowe in the hearts of the saynts. I doe assure I have heard them
pray in the publique assemblies that the Lord would give you meeke
and humble spirits, not to stryve soe much for uniformity as to
keepe the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.” He warns them
“not to practice those courses in a wilderness, which you went so
farre to prevent”; and adds, “I hope you doe not assume to
yourselves infallibillities of judgment, when the most learned of
the Apostles confesseth he knew but in parte.”[661]
Footnote 659:
Palfrey's far-fetched theory, that the whole affair was engineered by
Clark in order to acquire a grievance to be used in England later, has
no foundation whatever in any contemporary conjecture, and in any case
would not alter in the slightest the facts so far as Massachusetts is
concerned. It is of interest only as showing to what lengths that
colony's clerical historians have gone in their efforts to defend in
New England everything which they condemn in old England, and to treat
the Massachusetts settlers as saints instead of very human Englishmen
of the seventeenth century. Palfrey, _History_, vol. II, pp. 350, 354.
Footnote 660:
_Cf._ Chap. VII, _supra_.
Footnote 661:
Hutchinson, _Papers_, vol. II, pp. 127 _ff._; Backus, _Baptists_, vol.
I, pp. 198 _f._
In Cotton's reply, the ministers defended the acts of the Court, and,
speaking of the victims' imprisonment, Cotton even descended so low as
to write, “I believe they neither of them fared better at home, and I am
sure Holmes had not been so well clad of many years before.” More
interesting, however, is his plain enunciation of the doctrine that they
alone knew the will of God and should lay it down for the community,
which we noted in an earlier chapter as one of the outstanding
characteristics of Puritanism in every age. “There is a vast
difference,” he wrote, “between men's inventions and God's institutions;
we fled from men's inventions, to which we else should have been
compelled; we compel none to men's inventions.” The inference was, of
course, that, whatever the rest of mankind might think, any institution
decreed by the Massachusetts ministers was, _ipso facto_, God's.
Therefore, “if the worship be lawful in itself, the magistrate
compelling him to come to it, compelleth him not to sin, but the sin is
in his own will that needs to be compelled to a Christian duty.”[662]
Four fifths of their fellow citizens might refuse to join their
churches; the noblest spirits among the Puritan element in England might
plead with them; but in vain. The theocracy had now reached such a
height of intellectual pride, of intolerable belief in themselves as the
sole possessors of the knowledge of God, and as the only legitimate
interpreters of his will to the world, that either all freedom of
thought in Massachusetts must die, or their power must be destroyed. In
that struggle, the ministers and the magistrates were willing to shed
unlimited blood. Fortunately, noble men and women were not lacking to
offer themselves as victims that the liberty of God might be made
manifest.
Footnote 662:
Hutchinson, _Papers_, vol. II, pp. 131 _f._
The two who had dared to take Obadiah Holmes by the hand, as, streaming
with blood, he left the stake, were the silent witnesses of a great body
of liberal opinion. While the ministers and magistrates were, of course,
supported everywhere by very considerable numbers among the narrower and
more zealous members of the churches, many causes were at work to reduce
their proportion in relation to the community at large. Not only had the
body of non-church members always constituted the great majority of the
population, but even among the members themselves a new generation was
growing up, which had known nothing of the spiritual experiences in
England, and the struggle there against the established Church. Such a
struggle, as the Massachusetts authorities were soon to find in the case
of the Quakers, serves to intensify the zeal of the innovators. But in
Massachusetts, the former innovators had become transformed into
thoroughly orthodox members of a state church, supported by the arm of
the civil power, enjoying all the comfortable, safe, and deadening
results of an “establishment.” Their faith being no longer tried by
opposition, the inevitable consequence was a decline in interest and in
zeal. This was recognized by the ministers, and the rather curious
situation resulted, in which we find them adopting an apparently more
liberal attitude than the lay members themselves toward the question of
admission to membership. If, however, in the ministerial convention of
1657 and the synod of 1662, the clergy were rather the more anxious of
the two to effect a compromise on that point,[663] the cause is not far
to seek. Their power and influence—and it must always be remembered that
they thought they were using both for the work of the Lord—were
dependent upon the maintenance of the numbers of the Church, quite as
much as upon that of strict conformity and discipline. The theocracy
was, in fact, in very unstable equilibrium, and was equally in danger
from an increase in toleration or from a decrease in church-membership.
It was the preservation of their influence, from high motives as well as
from low, which was leading the clergy on the path to the “Half-Way
Covenant”; and the fact that they felt the need of lowering the
requirements for admission to the church is the strongest sort of
evidence as to the extent to which liberal opinion had developed among
the mass of laymen.
Footnote 663:
Walker, _Creeds_, pp. 244 _ff._
If, however, the clergy were to make the attempt, on the one hand, to
prevent the numbers of their followers from declining, by no longer
requiring them to have passed through the experience of conversion, on
the other, they were about to engage in the most determined effort yet
made to enforce conformity in matters of doctrine.
Of all the sects that had arisen during the religious ferment following
the Reformation, none seems to have been more misunderstood or to have
encountered greater opposition than the Quakers. In the middle of the
seventeenth century, both the beliefs and the practices of the sect were
in an inchoate state, and the vagaries of many of its adherents from the
lower walks of life seem not only to have called forth unparalleled
torrents of abuse from all quarters, but to have made men fear that
these inoffensive people were to repeat the excesses of some of the
frenzied sects of a century earlier. These fears and prejudices were
largely increased by the writings of various ministers, many of whom
were closely connected with New England.[664]
Footnote 664:
For example, Francis Higginson, Thomas Welde, Samuel Eaton,
Christopher Marshall. Jones, _Quakers_, p. 29.
Both the ideas and the carriage of the Quakers were such as to be
especially repugnant to the leaders of the theocracy in Massachusetts.
Their democratic tendency and peculiarities of social usage were
extremely offensive to persons who regarded themselves as an aristocracy
of the Saints of God, and who looked upon any lack of respect offered to
magistrates or ministers as little short of blasphemy. Moreover,
religion as professed by the Quakers was at the opposite pole of thought
and experience from that professed by the Puritans. The latter looked
upon the Bible as the only complete and final revelation of God to man,
of which the minister was the official expounder. To them, the covenant
between man and God, the preaching of the word, the scrupulous
observance of the Sabbath and of the letter of the Judaic laws, the
hard-won privilege of receiving the Sacrament, were all of the essence
of religion. On the other hand, the Quakers laid special stress upon the
divine illumination in the individual heart, and upon a continuing
revelation of Himself by God to man. They denied to the Bible the
position assigned to it by the Puritans, and were bitter in their
denunciations of “a hireling ministry.” To them the sacraments were
shadows, while their lives were saturated with the spirit of the New
Testament, not the Old. It was in this antithesis that lay the real
answer to George Bishop's question to the Massachusetts magistrates,
when he asked: “Why was it that the coming of two women so shook ye, as
if a formidable army had invaded your borders?”[665]
Footnote 665:
George Bishop, _New England Judged by the Spirit of the Lord_ (London,
1703), p. 2.
Mary Fisher and Ann Austin, the two women in question, arrived at
Boston, from Barbadoes, in July, 1656, a few weeks after Ann Hibbens had
been hung as a witch.[666] Governor Endicott was away at the time, but
the Deputy Governor, Bellingham, took charge of the proceedings which
were immediately begun against them. Their baggage was searched, and a
hundred volumes, considered heretical, were confiscated and burned,
without compensation. Although there was nothing about their case to
suggest witchcraft, the authorities had them stripped stark naked and
examined for evidences, with unnecessary indignities.[667] They were
imprisoned, deprived of light in their cell, and refused communication
with anyone. Finally, after five weeks of this illegal punishment, they
were shipped back to Barbadoes, fortunate in having escaped before
Endicott's return.
Footnote 666:
_Massachusetts Records_, vol. IV, pt. i, p. 269.
Footnote 667:
Bishop, _New England Judged_, pp. 4 _f._, 12; _Swarthmore Collection_,
vol. I, p. 66, cited in Jones, _Quakers_, p. 28 _n._ One of the
curious elements in the psychology of the Puritans was their morbid
interest in the most indecent sexual matters. One may find the details
of a similar physical examination set forth by Winthrop, and the pages
of his journal, as those of Bradford, the records of colonies and
towns, the letters of clergymen, etc., all contain minute accounts of
matters which to-day would find their place only in a limited class of
medical textbooks.
Within a few days of their leaving, eight more Quakers arrived on a ship
from London, and were promptly accorded similar treatment, except that
witchcraft was not charged.[668] Endicott's attitude was shown at once.
“Take heed you break not our Ecclesiastical Laws,” he said to them, “for
then ye are sure to stretch by a Halter.” At the trial, when they asked
for a copy of the laws against them, he refused to allow them to see
one—"to the grieving of the People then present," wrote our contemporary
authority, “who said openly in the Court—How shall they know then when
they Transgress?”[669] After some weeks' confinement, they were shipped
back to England, and the Massachusetts authorities addressed a letter to
the United Colonies, asking for the passage of a general regulation
against allowing “such pests” as Quakers to be admitted to any of the
colonies.[670] In October, the Massachusetts General Court passed the
first law specifically directed against the sect, which provided that
any master of a ship bringing a known Quaker to Massachusetts should be
fined £100, and be required to give bonds for taking such out of the
colony again, in default of which he was to be imprisoned. The Quaker
was to be committed to the “house of correction,” to be severely
whipped, “kept constantly to worke,” and not permitted to speak with
anyone. If any resident of the colony defended any Quaker opinion, he
was to be fined or, on the third offense, banished; while any person
“reviling” a magistrate or minister, which meant criticizing them, was
to be fined or whipped.[671] Few bits of legislation can be more
complete than this, which thus provided punishment for an offender,
denied anyone the right to speak in his behalf, and made it a crime to
criticize the men who had passed the law. One voice, nevertheless, was
publicly raised on behalf of liberty. Nicholas Upshall, “a weakly old
man,” who, when the two Quakeresses were being starved in prison, had
bribed the jailer to give them food, heard the new law being proclaimed
in the streets. He protested against it, and for his temerity in daring
to criticize the magistrates, he was fined £20, and banished at the
beginning of winter.[672] On his way to free Rhode Island, he was
offered a home by an Indian who took pity upon him, and who, after
hearing of his misfortune, exclaimed, “What a God have the English who
deal so with one another about the worship of their God!”[673] Upshall,
however, continued his journey to Gorton's settlement, where he was
welcomed and cared for.
Footnote 668:
Richard Smith also arrived from Long Island, being deported thither
again.
Footnote 669:
Bishop, _New England Judged_, p. 10.
Footnote 670:
_Acts United Colonies_, vol. II, p. 156.
Footnote 671:
_Massachusetts Records_, vol. IV, pt. i, pp. 277 _f._
Footnote 672:
_Ibid._, pp. 279 _f._
Footnote 673:
Bishop, _New England Judged_, p. 40.
The following year, a band of Quaker missionaries from England landed at
Newport, and were kindly received by the Rhode Islanders.[674] This at
once aroused the other colonies, whose Commissioners wrote to the Rhode
Island government of the “prudent care” that Massachusetts had taken
when Quakers had sought her hospitality, and requested that government
to banish such Quakers as were already on the Island, and to prohibit
any more from coming, so that the “contagion” might not spread. The
letter ended with the threat that, if the little colony did not take
such action, “wee apprehend that it will be our duty seriously to
consider what further provision God may call us to make to prevent the
aforesaid mischiefe.”[675]
Footnote 674:
Jones, _Quakers_, pp. 45 _ff._
Footnote 675:
_Acts United Colonies_, vol. II, pp. 180 _f._
To this bullying letter, Rhode Island sent an answer as wise as it was
dignified. After stating their desire to live in loving correspondence
with all the colonies, they wrote:—
“As concerning these quakers (so called), which are now among us, we
have no law among us, whereby to punish any for only declaring by words,
&c., theire mindes and understandings concerning the things and ways of
God, as to salvation and an eternal condition. And we, moreover, finde,
that in those places where these people aforesaid, in this colony, are
most of all suffered to declare themselves freely, and are only opposed
by arguments in discourse, there they least of all desire to come, and
we are informed that they begin to loath this place for that they are
not opposed by the civill authority, but with all patience and meekness
are suffered to say over their pretended revelations and admonitions,
nor are they like or able to gain many here to their way; surely we find
that they delight to be persecuted by civill powers, and when they are
soe, they are like to gain more adherents by the conseyte of their
patient sufferings, than by consent to their pernicious sayings: And yet
we conceive, that theire doctrines tend to very absolute cuttinge downe
and overturninge relations and civill government among men, if generally
received.”[676]
Footnote 676:
_R. I. Records_, vol. I, pp. 376 _f._
The General Assembly sent a similar reply, some months later, in which
they stated that freedom of conscience was the principal ground of their
charter, “which freedom we still prize as the greatest hapiness that men
can possess in this world”; and added that Quakers were “suffered to
live in England; yea even in the heart of the nation.”[677] Apparently
the only answer the United Colonies could make to the worldly wisdom and
nobility of their little neighbor, was to threaten to cut off her trade
and to deprive her of the necessities of life.[678] Nor has the letter,
which is one of the landmarks in the struggle for religious liberty in
America, fared better at the hands of New England's clerical historians.
Palfrey, who devotes thirty-five pages to an extenuating account of the
Massachusetts persecution, conceals Rhode Island's stand in a footnote;
and Dr. Ellis speaks of that colony's protest as “a quaint letter,” in
which, incredibly, he finds only “naïveté and humor.”[679]
Footnote 677:
_Ibid._, I, pp. 378 _ff._
Footnote 678:
_Ibid._, pp. 396 _ff._
Footnote 679:
Palfrey, _History_, vol. II, p. 472 _n._; Ellis, _Puritan Age_, pp.
xvii, 457.
Meanwhile, the other four colonies proceeded to pass more stringent laws
themselves, though those of Plymouth and Connecticut were less severe
than those of New Haven, where the penalties rose to branding the letter
H on the hands of male Quakers, and boring the tongues of Quakeresses
with a red-hot iron.[680] This latter punishment, as well as the cutting
off of ears, was likewise added to the Massachusetts laws.[681] In 1658,
the Commissioners of the United Colonies “seriously comended” to the
several colonies that they pass legislation declaring that, if any
Quaker, once banished, returned, the offender should suffer death.[682]
Massachusetts, however, which was clearly behind the suggestion, was the
only colony that did so. Connecticut, which was lenient in its
treatment, had but little trouble, and Governor Winthrop of that colony
told the Massachusetts magistrates that he would go down on his bare
knees to beg that they would not execute the death-penalty. Plymouth was
more influenced by its powerful neighbor, and one of the magistrates,
deposed for his toleration of the sect, wrote of the persecution in
Massachusetts, “we expect that we must do the like, we must dance after
their Pipe; now Plymouth-Saddle is upon the Bay-Horse.”[683]
Footnote 680:
_Plymouth Col. Records_, vol. XI, pp. 100, 101, 125, and _passim_
_Conn. Col. Records_, vol. I, pp. 283 _f._, 303, 308; _New Haven
Records_, vol. II, pp. 217, 238 _ff._; Bishop, _New England Judged_,
pp. 160 _ff._, 203 _ff._, 226 _ff._
Footnote 681:
_Massachusetts Records_, vol. IV, pt. i, pp. 308 _f._
Footnote 682:
_Acts United Colonies_, vol. II, p. 212. John Winthrop, of
Connecticut, signed with the notation: “looking att the last as a
query and not as an Act; I subscribe.”
Footnote 683:
Letter from Cudworth, in _New England a degenerate Plant_ (London,
1659), p. 16.
In spite of a petition signed by twenty-five names, which was presented
to the General Court in Boston, asking for severer laws against the
Quakers,[684] and which was probably inspired by the Reverend John
Norton, there was a strong sentiment in the colony against such action.
The cruel sufferings that the authorities by this time had inflicted
upon Mary Dyer, Mary Clark, Christopher Holden, the Southwicks, Richard
Dowdney, and many others, and their patience under affliction, were
telling heavily in favor of the Quakers and against the clergy.[685] In
the case of William Brend, the people became so aroused as temporarily
to frighten the authorities in their mad course. He had been put “into
Irons, Neck and Heels, lockt so close together, as there was no more
room between each, than for the Horse-Lock that fastened them on”; and
was kept in that way for sixteen hours, without food, after having been
whipped. The next day he was whipped again with a tarred rope, so
severely that the rope untwisted; but a new one was procured, and he was
given ninety-seven more blows. “His Flesh was beaten Black, and as into
a Gelly; and under his Arms the bruised Flesh and Blood hung down,
clodded as it were in Baggs.” The next morning, after threatening to
give him more, the Puritan jailer went to church. Brend, who had then
been some days without food, finally became unconscious. The people,
learning the facts, protested loudly, and a tumult was raised. Endicott
sent “his Chyrurgion, to see what might be done (such Fear was fallen
upon you,” writes our authority, “lest ye should suffer for his Blood)
who thought it impossible according unto Men that he should live, but
that his Flesh would Rot from off his Bones, ere that bruised Flesh
could be brought to digest (this was the Judgment of your Governors
Chirurgion), and such a cry was made by the People that came in to see
him, that ye were constrained, for the satisfaction of them, to set up a
Paper at your Meeting-House-Door, and up and down the Streets, That the
Jaylor should be dealt withal the next Court; but it was soon taken down
again, upon the instigation of John Norton (your High-Priest unto whom,
as the Fountain or Principal, most of the Cruelty and Bloodshed herein
rehearsed, is to be imputed) and the Jaylor let alone: For, said John
Norton (but how Cruelly let the Sober judge)—W. Brend endeavored to beat
our Gospel-Ordinances black and blue; and if he was beaten black and
blue, it was Just upon him; and said he would appear in the Jaylor's
behalf.”[686]
Footnote 684:
_Massachusetts Archives_, cited by R. P. Hallowell, _The Quaker
Invasion of Massachusetts_ (Boston, 1887), pp. 153 _ff._
Footnote 685:
Bishop, _New England Judged_, pp. 47-62.
Footnote 686:
_Ibid._, p. 67.
It is not intended to go into all the details of the many other and,
happily, somewhat less terrible cases of the persecution; and the above
extract from a contemporary has been given because the grim realities of
the past are apt to be blurred by our easy modern phrases.
The Reverend John Norton, the Reverend Charles Chauncey, and other
divines, as well as the Governor and other leading laymen, continued to
press for a law allowing them to execute the death-penalty legally. The
struggle, as usual, ranged the people against the theocratical leaders,
and the deputies refused to pass the law prepared by the clergy and
voted by the magistrates, which not only imposed death upon any Quaker
who should return after banishment, but denied the right of trial by
jury, and relegated the cases to a court composed of three magistrates,
a majority of whom could impose the penalty.[687] The House of Deputies,
which contained twenty-six members, finally consented to the passage of
the law, somewhat amended, by a majority of one, owing to the absence,
on account of illness, of one of those who had opposed the bill.[688] In
view of the severe penalties imposed upon all who might speak in defense
of Quaker doctrines, the thirteen who stood out to the end deserve all
praise.
Footnote 687:
Bishop, _New England Judged_, p. 101.
Footnote 688:
_Ibid._, p. 102. The law is in _Massachusetts Records_, vol. IV, pt.
i, pp. 345 _ff._
Immediate steps were taken to influence public opinion in favor of the
new law, and Norton was appointed by the Court to write a treatise in
support of it, which was published the following year.[689] Meanwhile,
the persecution continued unabated. At the same court at which the law
was passed, six Quakers were banished on pain of death, and four months
later, the children of two of them, Daniel and Provided Southwick, were
ordered sold into bondage in Virginia or the West Indies, by the County
Treasurer, to pay the accumulated fines imposed upon them for not
attending a Puritan church. No ship's captain, however, sufficiently
hardened in the religion of New England could be found to share in the
guilt of this transaction.[690] There is no need of going into the
details of the other cases, which were soon overshadowed by those of the
martyrs who voluntarily suffered the extreme penalty, in order to
testify to the truth as they saw it, and to die for liberty of opinion.
Footnote 689:
_Massachusetts Records_, vol. IV, pt. i, p. 348; also, _The Heart of
New England rent at the Blasphemies of the present Generation_;
Cambridge, 1659. The liberty of conscience which the more liberal part
of the community was striving for he denounced as liberty “to answer
the dictates of the errors of Conscience in walking contrary to Rule.
It is a liberty to blaspheme, a liberty to seduce others from the true
God. A liberty to tell lies in the name of the Lord” (p. 51). We may
note here that several New England historians, as one of the defenses
of Massachusetts, lay stress upon the vituperative language employed
by the Quakers. As a matter of fact, none found in the contemporary
records at all equals that of the Puritans, the violence of whose
language is open for any to read in their legislative enactments and
state documents. Many remarks addressed by officers of the Puritan
courts, from Endicott down, to their helpless prisoners, could be
expressed in modern books only by a series of dashes.
Footnote 690:
_Massachusetts Records_, vol. IV, pt. i, pp. 349, 367, 366; Bishop,
_New England Judged_, p. 107.
There is no doubt that Mary Dyer, William Robinson, and Marmaduke
Stevenson had counted the full cost when they returned from banishment
to face certain death, in the autumn of 1659. Sentence was pronounced on
the eighteenth of October, and the execution took place a few days
later.[691] On the petition of her son, Mary Dyer had been reprieved,
and was once more banished; but with a fiendish ingenuity of cruelty,
she was not to know of it, and was to be led to the gallows with a rope
about her neck, and to wait while the two men were being hung. As they
were led to execution, the three walked hand in hand. “Are you not
ashamed to walk between two young men?” asked the Puritan marshal, with
characteristic coarseness. “It is an hour of the greatest joy I can
enjoy in this world,” answered the pure-hearted woman. “No eye can see,
no ear can hear, no tongue can speak, no heart can understand, the sweet
incomes and refreshing of the spirit of the Lord which I now
enjoy.”[692] After the others had died, her hands and legs were bound,
her face covered, and the rope adjusted around her neck. At that moment
her reprieve was announced to her. She refused to accept her life, but
was taken to Rhode Island by her family. The following spring, however,
she returned and told the General Court that she was to bear witness
against the unjust law, which this time was allowed to take its
course.[693] A few months later, another Quaker, William Leddra,
suffered the same penalty.
Footnote 691:
_Massachusetts Records_, vol. IV, pt. i, pp. 383 _f._
Footnote 692:
Bishop, _New England Judged_, p. 134.
Footnote 693:
_Massachusetts Records_, vol. IV, pt. i, p. 419.
So far, in the Puritan colonies, mainly in Massachusetts, over forty had
been whipped, sixty-four imprisoned, over forty banished, one branded,
three had had their ears cut off, five had had the right of appeal to
England denied them, four had been put to death, while many others had
suffered in diverse ways.[694]
Footnote 694:
Besse, _Abstract of the Sufferings, etc._, cited by Jones, _Quakers_,
pp. 91 _ff._
There are many contemporary evidences, however, to show that the
sympathy of the people went out more and more to the victims. At the
time of the execution of Robinson and Stevenson, a heavy guard had been
necessary to allow the sentence to be carried out, and the Court had
found it needful to prepare a long defense of their action against such
as might feel “pitty and comiseration,” and others who might look upon
the magistrates as “bloody persecutors.” Apologetic broadsides were
printed to the same effect.[695]
Footnote 695:
_Massachusetts Records_, vol. IV, pt. i, pp. 384 _ff._; _Mass. Hist.
Soc. Proceedings_, Series III, vol. II, p. 203.
While the trial of Leddra was in progress, a banished Quaker, Wenlock
Christison, suddenly appeared in court, and after declaring his
identity, looked into the stern face of Endicott, and solemnly said to
him, “I am come here to warn you that you should shed no more innocent
blood, for the blood that you have shed already, cries to the Lord for
vengeance to come upon you.”[696] He was immediately arrested, and at
his trial protested that the colony had no authority to make laws
repugnant to the laws of England, and that there was no law there
providing for capital punishment against Quakers. But by this time even
the magistrates had begun to hesitate in their course, and several
refused to vote for his death. Endicott, in a fury, pounded the table,
and ordered another vote, thundering out, “You that will not consent,
record it: I thank God I am not afraid to give judgment.” It is said
that the result was uncertain, and that the Governor himself
precipitately passed the sentence of death.[697]
Footnote 696:
W. Sewel, _History of the Quakers_ (New York, 1844), vol. I, p. 338.
Footnote 697:
_Ibid._, p. 344; _Massachusetts Records_, vol. IV, pt. ii, p. 20.
The sentence, however, was never executed. Not only had the people of
Massachusetts now risen in revolt against the persecuting tyranny of the
ministers and magistrates, but the colony was to be stayed in its course
by a stronger power. The English monarchy had been restored a year
before, and the relations of Massachusetts to the mother-country were
about to undergo a marked change.
Complaints had been made to King Charles of the persecutions in New
England, and word of this had been received privately in Massachusetts.
Partly from fear of his possible action, and partly in deference to the
evident opposition of the people, a new law was passed, which, while
still preserving the death-penalty, evidently intended to make it less
necessary of enforcement.[698] Under this new act, Christison and
twenty-seven others were released from prison, though two were stripped
to the waist, and whipped through the town.[699]
Footnote 698:
_Acts Privy Council, Colonial, 1613-1680_, p. 312; _Massachusetts
Records_, vol. IV, pt. ii, p. 20.
Footnote 699:
Sewel, _Quakers_, vol. I, p. 345; _Massachusetts Records_, vol. IV,
pt. ii, p. 24.
On receiving news of Leddra's death, Edward Burrough, an English Quaker,
had secured an audience with the King, and told him that “there was a
vein of innocent blood opened in his dominions, which if it were not
stopped would overrun all”; to which the monarch answered, “but I will
stop that vein.” His secretary was called, and an order at once prepared
to be sent to the Massachusetts government. As no royal ship was then
sailing, the Quakers hired one and dispatched the “king's missive,” by
Samuel Shattuck, a banished Massachusetts Quaker. In six weeks, the
condemned man, now a King's messenger, confronted Endicott, and
delivered the letter, ordering that no further proceedings be taken
against Quakers, and that such as were under charges be sent to England.
Endicott read it, and with what must have been the most painful emotion
of his life, he looked at the hated heretic and said, “We shall obey his
Majesty's commands.”[700] Orders were issued for the release of all
Quakers, and Shattuck, speaking of the colonists, said that “many mouths
are now opened, which were before shutt, and some of them now say, Its
the welcomest ship that ever came into the land.”[701]
Footnote 700:
The account is from Sewel, _Quakers_, vol. I, pp. 345 _ff._ The letter
has often been reprinted. _Cf._ Jones, _Quakers_, p. 98; _Cal. State
Pap., Col., 1661-68_, pp. 55 _f._
Footnote 701:
The laws were temporarily suspended. _Massachusetts Records_, vol. IV,
pt. ii, p. 34. A popular ballad, supposed to have been written about
1676, is interesting, not only for its confirmation of other
contemporary sources as to where the blame rested, but as showing the
popular feeling.
But may we know the Counsellors that brought our Rulers in,
To be so guilty as they are, of the aforesaid sin?
They were the tribe of Ministers, as they are said to be,
Who always to our Magistrates, must be the eyes to see.
* * * * * * *
And I am not alone herein, there's many hundreds more
That have for many Years ago spoke much upon that Score.
Peter Folger, “A Looking Glass for the Times”; S. S. Rider, _R. I.
Tracts_, Series V, vol. XVI, pp. 6, 12.
Though no more of the sect were put to death, their persecution was by
no means ended. The new law had provided that every Quaker should be
apprehended, stripped from the waist up, tied to a cart's tail, and
whipped through every town to the boundary of the colony. This was to be
repeated if they returned, and on the fourth offense they were to be
branded, and, on the fifth, banished on pain of death.[702] This law was
modified by limiting the whippings to three towns only, in 1662,
although an answer to the address of Massachusetts to the King had been
received some months earlier, withdrawing much of the royal protection
formerly offered to the Quakers.[703] The change was evidently due,
therefore, to public sentiment in the colony. Of the barbarous treatment
accorded the victims under the act, it is unnecessary to speak in
detail. To mention one of the worst cases, we may note that three women
were stripped to the waist, tied to the cart's tail, and, in the end of
December, forced to tramp through deep snow, receiving ten lashes on
their bare backs in eleven successive towns.[704] The end, however, was
not far off. In 1665, Endicott died, and the Royal Commissioners also
commanded the Massachusetts General Court not to molest Quakers in their
secular business.[705]
Footnote 702:
_Massachusetts Records_, vol. IV, pt. ii, pp. 2 _ff._
Footnote 703:
_Ibid._, pp. 59, 164 _ff_; _Cal. State Pap., Col., 1661-1668_, p. 94.
Footnote 704:
The modern reader may find cases and references in Jones, _Quakers_,
pp. 101 _ff._
Footnote 705:
_Massachusetts Records_, vol. IV, pt. ii, p. 212.
Although a considerable body of opinion had, undoubtedly, been
throughout in favor of the course taken by the ministers and
magistrates,[706] all the evidence points to a large and increasing body
against it. The facts that the deputies were opposed to it, that the
Court, usually somewhat arrogant in the assertion of its authority, had
to stoop to public explanations and propaganda, that even the
magistrates finally revolted, and that in the last case, the
death-penalty could not be enforced even when passed, all indicate
clearly enough the refusal of the people to follow their ministers in
their frantic efforts to maintain orthodoxy at any cost.
Footnote 706:
_Cf._, _e.g._, the petition of the inhabitants of Dover in 1662
against the increase of Quakers. _Massachusetts Records_, vol. IV, pt.
ii, p. 69.
It is needless to say that the seventeenth century cannot be judged by
the standards of the nineteenth, but the second half of the earlier one
was by no means as intolerant as many would have us believe. Opinion in
England and in all of the colonies, although naturally bigoted as yet,
on the part of many, was, beyond question, becoming far more liberal. We
have already noted the frequent remonstrances addressed to Massachusetts
by her friends at home. We have seen the consistent stand of Rhode
Island from the start, and noted the tolerant tendencies in Plymouth and
Connecticut. In England, Vane was raising his voice in Parliament for
religious liberty in its most extreme form.[707] In the same body,
Cromwell was asking, “Is it ingenuous to ask liberty and not to give it?
What greater hypocrisy than for those who were opposed by the Bishops to
become the greatest oppressors themselves, as soon as their yoke was
removed.”[708] Maryland had possessed religious freedom for all
professing Christ, since 1649, and in 1665 the New Jersey Concession
provided for complete liberty of conscience, as did the charter of South
Carolina four years later.[709] In Jamaica, toleration, with full civil
liberties to all Christians, including Quakers, was proclaimed in
1662.[710] Public opinion notoriously outruns legislation, yet in
addition to the above examples and others, Pennsylvania, in 1682,
provided in its laws for equal liberty for all who believed in God;
while the Toleration Act, a landmark in the struggle in England, was
passed seven years later.[711]
Footnote 707:
Burton's Diary, cited by Hosmer, _Young Sir Harry Vane_, p. 501.
Footnote 708:
Carlyle, _Letters and Speeches of Oliver Cromwell_ (London, n.d.), p.
94.
Footnote 709:
Macdonald, _Select Charters_ (New York, 1906), pp. 142, 165.
Footnote 710:
_Cal. State Pap., Col., 1661-1668_, p. 111.
Footnote 711:
H. F. Russell Smith, _Theory of Religious Liberty in the Reigns of
Charles II and James II_ (Cambridge University Press, 1911), pp. 53, 1
_ff._
The progress made in the generation since Bradford and his little band
had tried to flee secretly from England had been great. A large section
of the people, however, both at home and in the colonies, was
undoubtedly as bigoted and intolerant as ever; and, unfortunately, the
leaders in charge of the destinies of the largest of the New England
colonies at the critical period we have been describing were numbered
among them. They had made a desperate stand, and hesitated at
nothing,—not even inflicting torture and taking human life,—in order to
maintain their position; and, happily for America, they had been
defeated, though not until they had set an indelible stain on the pages
of American history.
The struggle we have been describing has not been related at length
because of its antiquarian or dramatic interest. In toleration of
opinions lies the one hope for the advancement of the human race. If the
earthly end of man “is the highest and most harmonious development of
his powers to a complete and consistent whole,”[712] free scope must be
provided for differing opinion, and varieties in the experiment of
living. The contest in Massachusetts happened to be fought out on
religious lines, because it was an age of religious interests. It
happened to be fought against the ministers and magistrates because, in
that time and place, they represented the forces opposed to freedom and
to change. But there are other elements in man's nature than religion;
and tyranny and opposition to all innovation may be as securely
enthroned in the public opinion of a democracy as in the leaders of a
theocracy. So far as experience has shown, they are certain to be, in a
socialistic or communistic state; and the battle for toleration of
opinion, for the liberty of the individual personality to expand along
its own unique lines, for the chance of any further development in the
possibilities for the advancement of the race, may have to be fought out
again upon a grander scale than any the world has yet seen.
Footnote 712:
Humboldt; cited by J. S. Mill, _On Liberty_ (Oxford), p. 71.
That the course which the Massachusetts authorities took was wholly
unnecessary was proved by the events in the other colonies. What
happened was largely the consequence of their own acts. Rhode Island had
shown the just, and, at the same time, the wise course to pursue. As she
pointed out, wherever Quakers were not persecuted, they gave no trouble.
One of the glories of the present nation is its complete toleration, in
so far, at least, as religion is concerned; and its hard-won liberty is
in no small measure due to the people of its smallest state, and to the
noble men and women who suffered and gave their lives that the power of
the Massachusetts theocracy might be broken, and the human mind
unshackled. The debt which, in other ways, America owes to the largest
of the Puritan colonies is too great to require that aught but the truth
be told. It is not necessary to exalt erring and fallible men to the
rank of saints in order to show our gratitude to them or our loyalty to
our country. But the leaders and citizens of Rhode Island, the martyred
Quakers, and the men and women of Massachusetts and the other colonies,
who so lived and wrought and died that the glory of an heritage of
intellectual freedom might be ours, are the Americans whom, in the
struggle we have been reciting, it should be our duty to honor.
CHAPTER XII
THE THEORY OF EMPIRE
In the last chapter we mentioned the change that was to take place in
the relations between New England and the mother-country in the years
following the Restoration. That change was one of practical politics
rather than of theory, which latter had been but little altered from the
beginning of the colonial settlement, although the exigencies of events
in England had largely prevented its being translated into a consistent
course of action. In order to understand the imperial theory of the day,
and to appraise the wisdom and justice of the positions taken both by
England and by her colonies, it is necessary to shift our standpoint
temporarily, and to study the empire from its centre, and not from one
of its less important outposts. Business men in contact with large
affairs are familiar with the relations that exist between the central
administrative office of a great corporation—whose sources of raw
materials, producing plants, and selling agencies may be scattered over
half a continent—and the local manager of one of its units. If we
consult the latter, we may learn of local conditions as they affect him,
and, perhaps, of his grievances against the policy of the corporation;
but if we would properly understand the whole situation, we must study
it at the centre of the entire complicated system.
The New England colonies were but parts, and, at this period,
unimportant parts, of such a system. Not only can their history not be
understood, if we attempt to trace it without reference to England, but
neither can their relations with that country, unless we take the entire
colonial organization into account. The colonies were not independent
states.[713]
Footnote 713:
_Cf._ W. MacDonald, “A neglected Point of View in American Colonial
History,” _American Historical Association Report_, 1902, vol. I, pp.
171 _ff._
They were not even, primarily, independent states in the making. The
fact that a few of them, which happened to have a continent at their
back and unlimited room for expansion, revolted after a century and a
half, has tended to obscure their real contemporary relation to England,
much as the refraction of water alters the apparent position of objects
under it when seen from an angle. The angle from which we Americans
always look at the original colonies is that of our present independent
nation; but by doing so we unwittingly shift their position from
integral parts of a complicated imperial system to incipient independent
commonwealths, assumed to have been unjustly held in thraldom. Needless
to say, such a viewpoint vitiates our appraisal of every contemporary
act and opinion. It is possible that after some hundreds of years the
present United States may be divided into two or more nations; but
to-day they form one system, and no one would think of interpreting the
present relations between North and South, or East and West, in the
light of a possible separation centuries hence. In the same way, the
relations between England and her colonies in the seventeenth century
should be interpreted in the light of their then actual and prospective
union and the political theories current, and not in that of a
subsequent, and more or less accidental, separation, and of the wholly
different theories of a later age.[714]
Footnote 714:
I speak of the separation as accidental, not because the forces then
at work did not make it almost inevitable, but because altered
economic theories and scientific discoveries, the latter largely
eliminating the extremely important elements, in the original problem,
of time and distance, occurred a half-century after the separation
took place. Had they occurred sooner, they might have prevented it, as
they have been largely instrumental in holding the remainder of the
empire together and greatly adding to it. The influence of free-trade,
steam, and electricity has been of vast importance in imperial
politics.
When James I ascended the throne of England, the British Empire was not
in existence. The map of the world would have been searched in vain for
any settlement of English men on English soil outside of the British
Isles. When, less than half a dozen decades later, the third Stuart
returned from “his travels,” amidst the acclaims of the nation, it was
to become the head of an empire which already encircled the globe. From
Newfoundland to the Caribbean, English colonies stretched in a great arc
upon islands and mainland, while the Bermudas, equidistant, roughly
speaking, from all its parts, formed a strategic centre far out in the
Atlantic. Across that ocean, Fort Comantine on the coast of Guinea
protected the African slave-trade, and the fortified island of St.
Helena was a half-way station for the Indian fleets. Passing around the
Cape, the next English possession was Gombroon, on the Persian Gulf;
while, still farther east, in India, lay the factories on the Madras and
Bombay shores and the Bay of Bengal. Beyond those, again, English
traders were permanently established on Sumatra, Java, and the Celebes.
Such an imperial structure could not have been raised in less than the
allotted three-score years and ten of individual life by a practice
wholly tyrannical, or a colonial theory wholly false.
The great trans-oceanic empires which were attempted in the seventeenth
century by the leading European powers were political phenomena of an
absolutely new type. Neither the colonies of the city-states of Greece,
nor the slow continental expansion of Rome offered any adequate parallel
to the political results of the age of discovery, or any solutions of
the problems created.[715] Of those new empires, the English not only
has proved the most lasting and the greatest, but has secured, from its
very beginning, the largest comparative amount of freedom to the
colonists. Assertions have often been made that its development has been
unintentional and unconscious; that the English race, as the phrase
goes, has peopled half the world in a fit of absence of mind. This is
true only in the sense that the Empire's growth has been slow, normal,
and unhurried, and that its strength has lain in the character of the
people rather than in any consistent policy of aggression upon the part
of their rulers. That it has been unconscious in the sense that it has
been unobserved is, of course, disproved by the contemporary literature
relating to imperial problems in almost every decade from the sixteenth
century to the present day; while the wars of the entire seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries were largely caused by trade and colonial
questions.[716]
Footnote 715:
_Cf._ E. A. Freeman, _Greater Greece and Greater Britain_ (London,
1886); C. P. Lucas, _Greater Rome and Greater Britain_ (Oxford, 1912).
Footnote 716:
J. R. Seeley, _Expansion of England_ (London, 1884), pp. 110 _ff._
Englishmen could not emigrate to distant parts of the world, and found
settlements, without, in many and serious ways, involving the English
nation—and that apart from the fact that the soil on which the most
populous of the colonies grew up was the unquestioned property of the
English Crown. From the very beginning of colonization, therefore, even
before any permanent success had been achieved, we find the question
being discussed as to what use, if any, to the English people were these
distant settlements, with their possible disadvantages and certain
responsibilities.[717]
Footnote 717:
The beginnings of the discussion were noted in an earlier chapter. For
the view at the end of the 19th century, _cf._ C. P. Lucas's
Introduction, in Lewis, _Government of Dependencies_ (Oxford, 1891),
pp. xlv _ff._
If the establishment of the British Empire was not the result of
absent-mindedness, neither was it prompted by motives of philanthropy
toward generations yet unborn in countries overseas. Exploration,
settlement, far-distant foreign trade, ensuing wars with competing
powers, and the policing of trade-routes, were costly and hazardous
matters, and not to be undertaken without the prospect of very tangible
rewards of one sort or another. As we endeavored to show in an earlier
chapter, the main underlying motive that led to the great discoveries of
the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and, in the main, to the
colonizing movements of the seventeenth, was economic. It was,
therefore, entirely natural that the speculation as to the advantages
and disadvantages of empire, and as to the relations of England to her
dependencies, should be based upon the economic theories of the day. The
question, moreover, as to what advantages, if any, would accrue from
founding, or allowing to be founded, colonies not yet in existence, was
almost necessarily, what those advantages would be for England herself.
After the Empire had come into existence, the point of view shifted
somewhat, and, theoretically, the question became one of what advantage
a policy might prove to the Empire as a whole, although, as its greatest
aggregation of wealth and population, the source of protection, the seat
of power, the centre of all exchanges, in a word, the heart of empire,
the local interests of England would still outweigh those of any of the
dependencies. In no case would those at the head of the imperial
government, aside from selfish motives, of which there were plenty, have
thought it the part of either wisdom or justice to uphold the citizens
of any one colony in a course that seemed to run counter to the
interests of the Empire as a whole.
We have already noted how the breaking up of the unity of Christendom by
the development of state churches was but a phase of the operation of
new forces at work, at the beginning of the modern era, which were
moulding men's thoughts and emotions along national lines. In their
religious aspect, these gave rise to the post-Reformation churches, and
in their political aspect, to the growth of the modern state. They were
equally powerful in the economic field; and the so-called Mercantile
Theory, which was the ground of the imperial theories of the time, was
but the reasoned expression of this nationalizing of the economic life
of the peoples. In the Middle Ages, the life of the individual, in its
various relations, had been decentralized. In his political allegiance
he had looked one way, in his religious another, and in his economic
still another. The growing strength of the feeling of nationality was
gradually drawing all toward a common centre.
The balance of trade, which forms one of the essential features of the
Mercantile Theory, was not a new conception. It was, however, of great
practical influence upon economic doctrine and state policies when
applied to the nations. After speaking of how a merchant balances his
private books, and how the head of a family looks after his estate, an
early writer goes on to say that “the Royall Merchant, the Regall Father
of that great family of a Kingdom, if He will know the Estate of his
Kingdome, Hee will compare the Gaine thereof with the Expense; that is,
the Native Commodities issued and sent out, with the Forraine
Commodities received in; and if it appeare that the Forraine Commodities
doe exceed the Native, either he must increase the Native, or lessen the
Forraine, or else looke for nothing else, but the Decay of Trade and
therein the losse of his Revenue, and Impoverishing of his People.”[718]
Footnote 718:
E. M[isselden], _The Circle of Commerce or the Ballance of Trade_
(London, 1623), p. 131.
This theory was developed into a system by Mun, who affirmed that the
best method to “increase our wealth and treasure is by Forraign Trade,
wherein wee must ever observe this rule; to sell more to strangers
yearly than wee consume of theirs in value.”[719] The effects of this
doctrine were vastly increased and modified by the current belief that
the precious metals constituted the real wealth of a kingdom, and that
its whole trade, therefore, should be considered mainly in reference to
the resultant balance with foreigners in gold and silver. For example,
Mun states that if pepper be worth twenty pence in Amsterdam, and
threepence in the East Indies, it is a gain to the nation to buy it in
the latter, even though the freight and other charges make it cost more
in England than if it were imported from Holland, because those charges
are paid by Englishmen to Englishmen, so that only threepence in actual
coin leaves the country, as compared with twenty. In this particular, he
points out, his countrymen “must ever distinguish between the gain of
the kingdom, and the profit of the Merchant.”[720]
Footnote 719:
Thomas Mun, _England's Treasure by Forraign Trade_, 1664 (ed. New
York, 1910), p. 7. _Cf._ J. R. McCulloch, _A Short Collection of Early
English Tracts on Commerce_ (London, 1856), p. vi.
Footnote 720:
Mun, _England's Treasure_, p. 14. In his defense of the East India
Company, he advanced upon his predecessors in advocating the export of
bullion, if, as a direct result, a larger amount could be shown to be
imported. _Cf._ chaps. V and VI of his _Considerations on the East
India Trade_ (London, 1701); reprinted in _Early English Tracts_, pp.
1-49.
The effect of this theory upon the questions of colonization and
colonial policy was profound. “I conceive, no forein Plantation should
be undertaken or prosecuted,” wrote Samuel Fortrey, “but in such
countreys that may increase the wealth and trade of this nation, either
in furnishing us, with what we are otherwise forced to purchase from
strangers, or else by increasing such commodities, as are vendible
abroad; which may both increase our shipping, and profitably employ our
people; but otherwise, it is always carefully to be avoided, especially
where the charge is greater than the profit, for we want not already a
countrey sufficient for double our people, were they rightly employed;
and a Prince is more powerfull that hath his strength and force united,
then he that is weakly scattered in many places.”[721] Granted the
assumptions that real wealth consists only of the precious metals, and
that, in a country without mines, these can be acquired only as a result
of a favorable trade with strangers, the colonial theory of the European
nations in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries was as logical as it
was patriotic. The assumptions may have been wrong, but in this, as in
so many other cases, we must remember that delusions are “as effective
in social evolution as are unassailable facts.”[722]
Footnote 721:
_England's Interest and Improvement_, 1663; reprint, Johns Hopkins
University, 1907, p. 35.
Footnote 722:
G. L. Beer, _The Old Colonial System_ (New York, 1912), vol. I, p. 37.
The _pacte coloniale_, therefore, was, in some of its aspects, similar
to the ideal of the modern “trust,” which would combine in one enormous
organization the sources of its raw materials, its means of
transportation, manufacturing plants, and selling agencies. The ideal
empire, according to the Mercantile Theory, would embrace the home
country, which, aside from the production of certain raw materials, was,
in the main, the source of credit, the seat of manufactures, the selling
agency to the world for the whole empire, the centre of administration,
and the protective power to guard the system. The colonies in the
temperate zone were to supply the typical products of their regions, the
East and West Indies materials found in the tropics, and the African
stations the supply of negro labor.
It must be distinctly remembered that this was not merely an English
ideal. It was the end toward which the most advanced European nations
were striving in building up their empires according to what was then
considered as unquestionably the soundest economic doctrine. France,
under Colbert, was endeavoring, with a logical rigor that was not
equaled by the English, to erect just such a completely balanced system.
She, too, had her North American temperate-zone colony in Canada, her
fishing fleets off Newfoundland, her West Indian possessions, her
African supply in Senegal, and her factories in the East Indies.[723]
Footnote 723:
Mims, _Colbert's West Indian Policy_, pp. 8, 315, 319, 335.
Such a system, closed against the world, presupposed that every part
would be willing to subordinate itself to the theoretical needs of the
whole, and that the production of every unit could be so nicely adjusted
in nature and amount as to maintain the internal balances, and allow the
home country, as the selling agency, to establish a favorable balance
with the world external to the empire. Although some of the nations,
notably England and France, were able to block out empires so located,
as to their parts, as apparently to fulfil the requirements, no such
perfect adjustment of colonial production could ever be reached as to
fit the needs of the theory; while its logic, seemingly so perfect, left
out of account the fact that the colonists were human beings, who would
surely develop their own local interests, troubles, and aspirations, and
not insensible parts of a great machine.
The English Empire was the most complete embodiment of the ideal. The
factories in the Spice Islands and on the coasts of India supplied the
products of the Orient, not to be obtained elsewhere. Africa provided
the negroes, upon whose labor was based the production of sugar in the
West Indies, which formed one of the mainstays of the Empire's commerce.
St. Helena and Bermuda were strategic points on the Indian and American
trade-routes. Virginia and Maryland were wholly devoted to the staple
crop of tobacco, which was another of the important elements in British
trade. The fisheries of Newfoundland provided England with an article to
exchange with the Catholic countries of southern Europe for the wine,
salt, and other products imported from them; and they fitted in
perfectly with the imperial scheme.[724] All these distant possessions,
by employing an increasing amount of shipping, under the laws to be
mentioned later, built up the merchant fleet upon which rested England's
naval power and her ability to defend the Empire; while all of them
consumed English manufactured goods.
Footnote 724:
Beer, _Old Colonial System_, vol. I, pp. 319 _ff._; _Origins of the
British Colonial System_, p. 294; Osgood, _American Colonies_, pp.
111, 139 _ff._
New England, however, did not fit into this elaborate and delicately
adjusted trade-machine. In spite of her enormous forest-resources, which
had been counted upon to provide the Empire with naval stores and
timber, she failed utterly in competition with the countries on the
Baltic.[725] Her agricultural products were practically identical with
those of the old country, and so competed with them. There was no staple
crop, like sugar or tobacco, to form an element of imperial commerce.
Her fisheries, which had loomed so large at the time of the first
settlement, served, for various reasons, only to compete with those of
Newfoundland, and at once to reduce England's profits and to retard the
increase of her fishing fleet. The purely colonial shipping, which the
New England colonies early produced, drew away English seamen, competed
with English vessels, and reduced the naval strength of the
mother-country. Following the economic crisis of 1640, Massachusetts and
her sister colonies made strenuous and partly successful efforts to
establish home manufactures, which curtailed the market for English
goods.[726] As, even then, those colonies imported much more from
England than they exported to her, they had to seek an outlet for such
products as were not adapted for the English trade, in order to obtain
the money to settle their English bills. The West Indian colonies, on
the other hand, exported to England far more than they imported.
Consequently New England sold her timber and provisions to the island
settlements, and used their bills of exchange to pay her English debts.
In this, however, she seemed to be in part merely drawing away the
trade-balance of the West Indies by increasing her competition with the
home-country.[727] Nor, as the shrewd and thrifty New England merchants
grew in numbers and in wealth, did the English West Indian islands
afford them sufficient outlet for their commercial energies; and there
gradually developed that system of trade with the French island-group
which was to be one of the causes of the Revolution.[728]
Footnote 725:
Efforts were continually made, however, to secure naval stores from
her. _Cf._, under the Commonwealth, _Cal. State Pap., Col.,
1574-1660_, pp. 392, 399.
Footnote 726:
_Cf._ J. Winthrop, _History_, vol. II, pp. 29 _f._; V. S. Clark,
_Manufacturing in the U. S._, pp. 31, 34, 40, 50.
Footnote 727:
Beer, _Origins_, pp. 268, 285 _f._; _Old Colonial System_, vol. II,
pp. 210, 221, 230 _ff._
Footnote 728:
Mims, _Colbert's West Indian Policy_, pp. 224, _f._
When we add to this economic maladjustment, according to the current
theory, the unique position of the New England colonies as chartered or
practically independent governments, it is obvious how anomalous their
relations were to the imperial scheme. From the standpoint of
contemporary opinion, it was not unnatural that they should be regarded
by many as “the unfortunate results of misdirected efforts.” Nor was it
merely that they failed to fit in with the rest of the Empire. As they
grew in population, and in their avowed independence of all external
control of any sort, many an Englishman must have felt the fear
expressed by one of the ablest economic writers of the latter part of
the Empire's first century. Of all the American plantations, D'Avenant
wrote in 1698, New England “is the most proper for building ships and
breeding seamen, and their soil affords plenty of cattle; besides which,
they have good fisheries, so that, if we should go to cultivate among
them the art of navigation, and teach them to have a naval force, they
may set up for themselves, and make the greatest part of our West-Indian
Trade precarious,” as well as absorbing the colonial carrying trade and
merchandizing.[729] It has, indeed, been conjectured that Cromwell's
attempt, in 1665, to induce a large number of the New Englanders to
emigrate to the newly conquered island of Jamaica derived directly from
the failure of their colonies to fit into the mercantile empire,[730]
although, to the present writer, other economic and military motives
seem quite as likely.[731]
Footnote 729:
C. D'Avenant, “On the Plantation Trade, 1698,” in his _Discourses on
the Public Revenue, etc._ (London, 1771), vol. II, p. 9; _Cal. State
Pap., Col., 1574-1660_, p. 430.
Footnote 730:
_New Haven Colonial Records_, vol. I, p. 180; G. L. Beer, “Cromwell's
Policy in its Economic Aspects,” _Political Science Quarterly_, vol.
XVI, p. 611.
Footnote 731:
The main idea seems to have been the peopling of the island with
English—"from Nevis, St. Christopher's, New England, or any of the
other plantations in America." _Cal. State Pap., Col., 1574-1660_, pp.
450, 453. _Cf._ also F. Strong, “The Causes of Cromwell's West Indian
Expedition,” _American Historical Review_, vol. IV, pp. 229 _ff._; I.
S., _A brief and perfect Journal of the late proceedings and success_,
etc. (London, 1655), pp. 2 _ff._; _The Clarke Papers_ (Camden Society,
1899), pp. 203 _ff._
From this theory of empire sprang certain practical corollaries. In part
to avoid allowing foreigners to benefit from the imperial trade, and to
retain the carrying profits within the Empire, but mainly to build up
the merchant fleet, it was decreed that all goods must be transported in
vessels belonging to the mother-country or her colonies. Foreign goods,
according to the theory, would have to be excluded as far as possible
from the colonial markets, the products of the latter limited to the
English market, and colonial manufacturing restrained so as not to
compete with home-made goods, although the theory was never fully
translated into practice. On the other hand, as a partial offset to such
laws as were passed, which mainly redounded to the benefit of England so
far as their direct results were concerned, colonial produce was, to
some extent, given preferential treatment in that country, and, in some
important particulars, Englishmen were forbidden to compete with the
colonists. The colonies were also afforded protection against the
aggression of foreign nations. No colony could possibly have remained
independent. The choice was not between the English Empire and
independence, but between being subject to Protestant and, as the world
went then, liberal England, or to Catholic France or Spain.
As we have already said, in the second half of the seventeenth century,
Colbert, the great minister of Louis XIV, was applying the Mercantile
doctrine to the upbuilding of the French overseas empire with a rigor
that the English never attained. When he excluded all foreign vessels
from the French colonial carrying-trade, there was, as yet, no
sufficient French merchant fleet to serve colonial needs, and the West
India planters were brought to the verge of starvation and ruin. If they
“were hungry, barefooted and in rags,” writes the historian of Colbert's
policy, “they must count these things as a bit of temporary suffering,
to be endured for the upbuilding of French commerce. They must wait for
the law of supply and demand to operate and bring them, sooner or later,
an abundance from France.... But he was demanding too much. What meant
the noble idea of restoring French commerce and the upbuilding of a
mighty colonial empire to the planters in the West Indies, whose empty
bellies were crying for food, whose nakedness demanded to be
clothed?”[732] Nor were the colonial measures of the other nations less
repressive.[733] Both religious and economic interests, therefore, made
it desirable that the English colonies should remain within the English
Empire; and it was the power of England alone which enabled them to do
so. For it was not a question, for example, of the sturdy New England
settlers warding off attacks from the far fewer French inhabitants of
Canada. No colony was self-supporting or economically self-contained.
Cut off from access to the mother-country, deprived of her protection on
the ocean trade-routes, they would inevitably wither and die, or be
absorbed into one of the rival and less liberal empires.[734] The
allegiance of the colonists of various nations was in only slight
measure determined by their own comparative strengths, and almost wholly
by the naval powers of the home countries.
Footnote 732:
Mims, _Colbert's West Indian Policy_, p. 194.
Footnote 733:
_Cf._ Dutch prohibition of colonial manufactures, in Egerton, _Origin
and Growth of British Dominions_, p. 118 _n._; Beer, _Old Colonial
System_, vol. I, p. 150, for Portuguese policy.
Footnote 734:
For an example of the work England did in policing the trade routes,
_cf._ the case of the King David. Sailing from Newfoundland to
Tangier, she met with Algerine pirates off Cape St. Vincent, whom she
fought off in a three-days running fight. Later, meeting with “Five
Pirats more,” she was forced to surrender. A few days later, she was
rescued by a ship of the English navy; but the two vessels meeting
with “Six Pirats more,” the King David was a second time captured, to
be rescued once again some days later by another English ship, and
safely escorted into Malaga. _Acts Privy Council, Colonial,
1613-1680_, pp. xxxvi, 541.
Such, in brief outline, was the European theory of empire held during
our colonial period, some of the main features in the practical
application of which can be traced back for several centuries before
ever the question of empire arose, as we have indicated in our earlier
chapters.[735] The old life of the Middle Ages, which had been largely
municipal, had become national. The extraordinary energy of the new
period, facing an entire globe to be appropriated and exploited, rapidly
developed national spirit into imperial ambition, and the old ideas and
practices of a small and legally restricted commerce had to be suddenly
adapted and enlarged to meet a situation unprecedented in history. The
surprising fact is not that, in so many ways, the theory and practice of
empire-making should have contained errors and worked injustices, but
that one which, after all, proved highly successful, should have been
developed so immediately and so surely.
Footnote 735:
_Cf._ also Osgood, _American Colonies_, vol. III, pp. 195 _ff._
Until comparatively recently, the Mercantile Theory was regarded as a
sinister device to give play to the selfish profiteering of the English
merchant-class. It is, however, coming more and more to be recognized as
a necessary step in the evolution of the modern state. “What was at
stake,” writes Schmoller, who was the leader in these newer views, “was
the creation of real _political_ economies as unified organisms, the
centre of which should be, not merely a state policy reaching out in all
directions, but rather the living heart-beat of a united sentiment. Only
he who thus conceives of mercantilism will understand it; in its
innermost kernel it is nothing but state-making, not state-making in a
narrow sense, but state-making and national-economy-making at the same
time; state-making in the modern sense, which creates out of the
political community an economic community, and so gives it a heightened
meaning. The essence of the system,” he adds, “lies not in some doctrine
of money, or of the balance of trade; not in tariff barriers, protective
duties, or navigation laws; but in something far greater, namely, in the
total transformation of society and its organization, as well as of the
state and its institutions; in the replacing of a local and territorial
economic policy by that of the national state.”[736]
Footnote 736:
G. Schmoller, _The Mercantile System and its Historical Significance_
(New York, 1896), pp. 49 _ff._
Modern critics of the theory have been prone to lay stress upon the
obvious defects and shortcomings which appear in the workings of the
enactments designed to translate it into practice. As a matter of fact,
the policy proved successful, in spite of the eventual loss to England,
a century later, of a portion of her colonies; while in a different and
higher form, that of an imperial federated _Zollverein_, it is still
regarded by many as the solution of the possibly insoluble problem of
imperial government.
In a speech at the Savoy, in London, in 1917, the Premier of
Newfoundland, England's oldest colony, gave notable expression to such a
return to the policy of an earlier day. “This Empire,” he said, “cannot
live as a political empire unless it is developed as an economic empire.
All the raw material produced in the Empire should be manufactured in
the Empire before it leaves the Empire, and nothing should be admitted
into the Empire that could be produced in the Empire.”[737] Let us not
condemn too hastily the economic theories of the seventeenth century
until we are quite sure whither those of the twentieth are to lead us.
Footnote 737:
Sir Edward Morris, Speech at the Savoy, March 14, 1917. Given in
London _Times_, March 15, p. 6, col. 3.
The strength of an ocean empire lies wholly in sea-power, and the roots
of sea-power in the merchant marine. By her application of the
Mercantile Theory, England forced the Dutch, who had “run hackney all
the world over,” from the carrying-trade of her colonies; and for all
the centuries since, she has been the great commercial nation of the
world. France, who abandoned Colbert's policy, and turned her back on
the sea in 1672, embarking upon a career of Continental conquest, was,
during the next century, to be beaten by England single-handed for the
first time since the Middle Ages, to have her merchant shipping swept
away, and to lose Martinique, Guadaloupe, Canada, and India to her
rival.[738]
Footnote 738:
_Cf._ A. T. Mahan, _Influence of Sea Power upon History_ (Boston,
1898), pp. 88, 540, 73, 75 _f._
It has too frequently been assumed to be an obvious conclusion that the
Navigation Acts of the seventeenth century were a colossal blunder,
because, in part, the commercial policy of England lost her the
continental colonies in the eighteenth. Those who would commit
themselves to such a view might well determine whether, had England not
made use of the weapons of the earlier century, and thus developed that
naval power which alone enabled her to protect her American possessions,
she would have had any colonies left, continental or other, to be kept
or lost by any policies which she might adopt in the later period.
Having glanced at the theory of empire as it was understood by those at
home, we must turn to consider the measures adopted to reduce it to
practice, and also the views of imperial relations held by the
colonists.
We may again emphasize the fact that the colonies were dependencies of
England, and not independent nations. It was as much the right and duty
of England to assert and maintain some sort of imperial control over
them as it has been of the United States to do the same over her own
territorial possessions. The colonists were Englishmen, settled upon
English lands, subject to English laws, entitled to the rights of
Englishmen at home, protected by English power. The control exercised
over them was not that of a foreign nation, or imposed by conquest; and
the mere fact that some control should be exercised could not in itself
be construed as an act of oppression or tyranny. Had the waste lands on
which these emigrating Englishmen settled been contiguous to the borders
of any English county, none of the questions that arose as to their
relations to English sovereignty would have arisen. They were all due to
the distance, translated into time, that separated these English
subjects from the seat of authority, and to the new conditions of their
strange environment. From those two elements, “arose all that was
peculiar and exceptional in their relations with the British
government.”[739]
Footnote 739:
Osgood, _American Colonies_, vol. III, pp. 4 _f._; “The English
colonies, however, were not sister communities of England, but
dependent local jurisdictions for whose welfare and safety the
mother-country had assumed the responsibility.” Beer, _Origins_, p.
301. For discussion of the element of distance, _cf._ Lucas, _Greater
Rome and Greater Britain_, pp. 32 _ff._
At the time when the New England colonies were planted, the doctrine of
Parliamentary sovereignty, of the supreme authority in the state of that
body which had hitherto been regarded rather as a judicial than a
legislative one, was beginning to take hold of men's minds. It required,
however, the ordeal by battle of a civil war to decide the question; and
it was not until the Restoration that Parliament took its permanent
place among English institutions.[740] The close connection of the
colonies with the Crown arose from the fact that, during the period of
their founding, their relations to the government of England were mainly
with the Executive and as occupiers of the soil, the executive power
being then lodged in the King in Council, and the title to the land
being vested in the Crown.[741] As the constitutional situation
gradually altered, the colonies remained, of course, subject to the
sovereign power, wherever located, as did Englishmen at home, although
so complex, and difficult of both legal and equitable settlement, were
the questions of sovereignty in the Empire raised by the phenomena of
overseas dominions, that it is highly questionable whether their
solution has ever been found. Only a few years ago, a brilliant
Englishman could speak of the bonds then uniting England and her
colonies as “a confusion of legal formulas and brittle sympathies”; and
although, as tested in the world-crisis of the Great War, those
sympathies have proved anything but brittle, his conclusion that
imperial sovereignty is, in reality, non-existent, seems
irrefutable.[742] The ship of state to-day, compared to that of the
seventeenth century, is as a dreadnought to the Mayflower; but if, after
three centuries, the problem of imperial organization is yet awaiting
solution, with the best of will on the part of both England and the
dominions, there need be little surprise, and certainly no bitterness,
over the slow and blundering beginnings. Unfortunately, owing to the
uncertainty, in the course of England's political evolution, as to where
sovereignty really lay, and also to the inherent difficulties involved
in the question of the realm and the dominions, alluded to in an earlier
chapter, the way was all too open for controversial misunderstandings on
purely technical grounds between the colonies and the mother-country.
And this quite apart from the difficulties raised by distance, and the
attempted course of Stuart usurpation, against which latter, it must be
remembered, the forces of freedom were to struggle in old England as
well as in her colonies.
Footnote 740:
C. H. McIlwain, _The High Court of Parliament and its Supremacy_ (Yale
University Press, New Haven, 1910), pp. 109, 158, 352 _ff._, 137, 145.
Footnote 741:
Osgood, _American Colonies_, vol. III, p. 15; C. M. Andrews, _British
Committees_, p. 10.
Footnote 742:
F. S. Oliver, _Alexander Hamilton_ (London, n.d.), pp. 450, 447.
During the period covered by this volume, control over the colonies was
asserted in various ways and at various times by both Parliament and the
Crown. Patentees of the royal charters not infrequently asked Parliament
to confirm their privileges; while that body often inquired into the use
which was being made of those monopolistic documents; for it is
sometimes forgotten that such a charter as that obtained by
Massachusetts, for example, while regarded by the company as the basis
of its liberties, could also, quite as legitimately, be regarded by the
nation as creating a monopoly in one of its worst forms—that of the
exclusive use of the Crown, or public, lands. For the most part,
however, Parliament confined itself to passing legislation regarding
trade only, its control over the customs being continuous from
1641.[743]
Footnote 743:
Osgood, _American Colonies_, vol. III, p. 14; Beer, _Origins_, p. 341;
_Acts and Ordinances of the Interregnum_ (London, 1911), vol. II, p.
425.
Those who intended to found plantations necessarily had to apply to the
king for a charter, in order to obtain possession of the soil and
exemption from certain laws covering emigration and export. Technically,
the charters of the corporate colonies ranked merely with those of
English municipal corporations. According to a strict interpretation of
the law, therefore, so long as the private rights of individuals were
not infringed, the English government would be technically justified in
altering colonial institutions, or in dividing and combining colonies,
without the consent of the inhabitants.[744] As is always the case, old
laws and institutions were slightly altered by the use of legal fictions
and by modifications in practice, to meet the needs of a new situation.
It is unthinkable that an entirely new body of law, and a wholly new set
of institutions, should have been created, to serve political
contingencies that could by no means have been foreseen.
Footnote 744:
Osgood, _American Colonies_, vol. III, pp. 7 _ff._ The provinces were
the equivalents of English counties.
The element of distance again came into play, to alter profoundly the
practical effect of legal technicalities. In England the sovereign
power, in exercising its jurisdiction over municipalities, had local
knowledge of conditions, and could take immediate and effective action.
Moreover, even when the citizens of the municipality were not
represented in Parliament, they were yet largely protected from acts of
oppression by the fact that such acts were prevented by the
self-defensive foresight of other municipalities, which were
represented. The situation in regard to the colonies was entirely
different. Owing to the distance which separated them from home, it was
impossible that either the king or Parliament could have accurate
knowledge of local conditions, or take prompt measures. The difficulties
as to both these points, in the unsettled state of England in the
earlier part of the seventeenth century, were responsible for the
extraordinary freedom which the colonists enjoyed from interference in
their domestic political affairs. In addition, as their local conditions
were little understood, and of but slight moment to the bulk of
Englishmen at home, and as the interests of one colony frequently
conflicted with those of another differently situated, their rights, in
the absence of parliamentary representation, did not possess even that
vicarious protection enjoyed by their legal equivalents, the
unrepresented municipal corporations in England. Of necessity,
therefore, colonial interests, from the standpoint of the colonists,
were bound to be in part neglected by England, and in part
misunderstood, while they served, to a far greater extent than was
possible with those of any class or body at home, as the hunting-ground
of rival cliques of self-interested individuals or groups.
Down to 1643, when Parliament, as a result of the Civil War, assumed the
position of executive head of the government, colonial affairs had been
in the hands of the King in Council, and had been managed by a
succession of committees, sub-committees, and commissions, one of which
we have already encountered on the other side of the water at the time
of the troubles over the Massachusetts charter.[745] During the period
of the Interregnum, these were replaced by a tangle of committees of
Parliament and the Protector's Council, none of which were continuous,
or able to formulate and carry through a consistent policy. We have
already seen the results of the administrative confusion, in the
opportunity which it gave the New England colonies, and of which they
made full use, to develop their local institutions and policy in almost
entire disregard of their position in the Empire.
Footnote 745:
_Cf._ Andrews, _British Committees_, pp. 12 _ff._; P. L. Kaye, _The
Colonial Executive prior to the Restoration_ (J. H. U. S.), pp. 55
_ff._
This almost complete absence of any steady policy or consistent control
over the component parts of the imperial structure not only was
unacceptable to the merchants at home, but would probably have been
destructive of the Empire had it continued without change. Certain
measures of far-reaching importance, however, had already been enacted
under Cromwell; and the Restoration, which strengthened the government
and united the people, enabled England to undertake a more comprehensive
scheme for imperial organization, although in New England, owing to the
incorrigible tendencies of the Stuarts, it blundered into criminal
folly.
At first, two councils were created, one for Trade, and the other for
Plantations, their instructions largely following drafts prepared by the
London merchants Povey and Noell, who had for some years been actively
engaged in the study of colonial questions, and the formulation of a
colonial policy.[746] However these instructions might strike colonists
who refused to acknowledge any right of control whatever by the
mother-country, they could not but appear wise and just to the statesmen
and citizens at home. The councillors were ordered, in the first place,
to make a complete survey—by means of correspondence with the colonial
governors—of the laws and institutions, population and means of defense
of each colony. They were to study “means for the rendering those
dominions usefull to England, and England helpful to them, and for the
bringing the several Colonies and Plantations, within themselves, into a
more certain civill and uniforme waie of government and for the better
ordering and distributing of publique justice among them.” They were,
further, to maintain a correspondence with the local authorities in the
several colonies, so that they might have constant knowledge of “their
complaints, their wants, their abundance,” and their shipping, the
latter for revision of the Navigation Laws. Finally, they were to study
the methods employed by other states in their colonial government, and
to call experts to their assistance in any particular when needed.[747]
The Council was made up of able men, almost all of them authorities on
colonial questions, and in close touch with the colonies, while the
business, in the first instance, was frequently entrusted to
experts.[748] Of the work of the Council, Professor Andrews writes, that
“there was not an important phase of colonial life and government, not a
colonial claim or dispute, that was not considered carefully,
thoroughly, and in the main, impartially.”[749] In fact, an unbiased
study of the actions taken by the Privy Council and its committees
during nearly the whole of the seventeenth century leads one to agree
with the editor of the Acts, that, as a governing body, it was “anxious
to help, willing to take advice, free from preconception.”[750]
Footnote 746:
Andrews, _British Committees_, pp. 38, 56, 67 _ff._
Footnote 747:
Andrews, _British Committees_, where the texts of the Instructions and
of Povey's Overtures are both given.
Footnote 748:
The membership included Sir Anthony Ashley Cooper, who had served on
Plantation Committees during the Interregnum; Robert Boyle, President
of the Corporation for the Propagation of the Gospel in New England;
Sir Peter Leere and Sir James Draxe, old Barbadian planters; Povey,
Noell, Digges, and Colleton, all merchants and experts on colonial
trade. _Ibid._, pp. 76 _f._
Footnote 749:
_Ibid._, p. 76.
Footnote 750:
_Acts Privy Council, Colonial, 1613-1680_, p. xi.
The only individual connecting link between New England and the
government in England was the unofficial “agent” whom one or another of
the colonies appointed at times of crisis, such as the Hocking murder or
the Dr. Child petition, to present their case to the authorities.
Although unofficial, the office was recognized by the English
government, and such agents were employed by most of the colonies,
island as well as continental, the office becoming an integral part of
the administrative machinery of the following century.[751]
Footnote 751:
_Cf._ L. P. Kellogg, “The American Colonial Charter,” _Annual Report,
American Historical Association_, 1903, vol. I, p. 228; E. P. Tanner,
“Colonial Agencies in England during the 18th Century,” _Political
Science Quarterly_, vol. XVI, pp. 24 _ff._
Such, in bare outline, were the organs employed by England in the
administration of the colonies. Of the legislative enactments designed
to build up the Empire, the most important were precursors of the more
famous Navigation Acts of the following century. In 1650, 1651, 1660,
and 1663, ordinances were passed for the control of trade and shipping,
which, in the period now under review, were more important in their
political than in their economic influence upon New England. Holland had
been the first of the European nations to understand the effect upon
economic prosperity at home of the building up of colonial trade, and in
the middle of the seventeenth century threatened to absorb the entire
carrying trade of the world, the value of goods shipped annually in
Dutch bottoms having been estimated at a billion francs.[752] The
English Navigation Acts of Cromwell and Charles II, like the policy
initiated by Colbert in France, were aimed mainly at breaking the
monopoly of Holland, and building up the national merchant-marines of
England and France. Even the fisheries off the coasts of England and
Scotland had passed into Dutch hands, and Englishmen had long been
clamoring for some means of fighting commercially the growing menace of
Dutch sea power.[753]
Footnote 752:
Mahan, _Sea Power_, p. 96. _Cf._ Leroy-Beaulieu, _De la Colonisation
chez les peuples modernes_, vol. I, pp. 113 ff.
Footnote 753:
G. Edmundson, _Anglo-Dutch Rivalry_ (Oxford, 1912), pp. 36 _ff._, 79,
154.
As the effects upon New England, until the following century, were
mainly indirect, it is not necessary to give the details of the various
acts in the order in which they were passed. Their aim was
twofold—destructive and constructive. In the former aspect, they aimed
at diminishing, if not wholly destroying, the shipping, and so both the
commerce and the naval power of competing states. On their constructive
side, their design was to build up the shipping of the English Empire,
and, in reference to certain articles, to make England the sole market
for their trade. As to the first point, the colonies were put upon the
same basis as England herself; and, in exchange for the advantages
derived by her from the second, she offered the colonists certain
privileges in the home markets. It was, therefore, enacted that no trade
could be carried on between England and her dominions except in ships
owned by her or them, and manned by English or colonial crews, the same
restriction applying to all goods imported into either from any foreign
country or colony in America, Asia, and Africa.[754] This was merely an
extension of acts already frequently passed, or provisions in the early
charters, such as we have already noted.
Footnote 754:
Macdonald, _Select Charters_, pp. 106 _ff._, 110 _ff._, 133 _ff._
The other main point, that of limiting the markets in certain goods to
England, was also merely an extension of another long-familiar idea.
When the economic organization, in the later Middle Ages, was still
largely municipal, it had been found advantageous to designate certain
towns as the sole markets, or “staple,” for certain goods. For some
centuries, the belief in the economic soundness of this practice
continued to be held; and, as we noted in the very first charter
relating to America,—that of Cabot, in 1496,—it was required that all
goods should pass through the port of Bristol. The Navigation Act of
Charles II required that certain “enumerated” commodities produced in
the colonies should be sold only in England, and not directly to
foreigners, thus making England the “staple” for the Empire in the same
way in which certain municipalities had formerly been the staples for
the kingdom. Theoretically, the colonists were in the same relative
position to England in the matter as were Englishmen at home to the
staple municipalities, although, of course, the practical disadvantages
and injustice to the colonists were much greater when the scheme was
made imperial.
The list of enumerated commodities in the seventeenth century, however,
was very limited, and no such restrictions were placed upon purely
intercolonial commerce. A number of the most important colonial exports,
such as wheat and fish, were not included; while of the more important
ones named, none were produced in New England, and but one—tobacco—by
any of the American continental colonies. As an offset to the advantages
accruing to England by thus controlling the sale of the enumerated
commodities, that country placed prohibitive duties on many of them when
imported from other countries, thus giving the colonies the monopoly of
the market to which they were limited. In the case of tobacco, which was
successfully grown in England, she incurred the resentment of a
considerable element in her own agricultural classes by forbidding its
culture. So great, indeed, was the opposition to giving the American
planters the monopoly of the English market, that the government had for
many years to use armed forces against its own citizens to keep faith
with the colonies.[755]
Footnote 755:
Tobacco was raised in eighteen English counties, to be trampled down
annually by royal troops of horse, so strongly had both the plant and
the colonial theory, respectively, taken root in English soil and
English minds. _Cf._ Beer, _Origins_, pp. 117 _ff._ _Acts Privy
Council, Colonial, 1613-1680_, pp. xxii _ff._
The only other point of importance in these early acts was the provision
in that of 1663, that no European manufactured goods could be shipped to
the colonies unless first landed in England, Wales, or Berwick. Owing,
however, to a system of drawbacks on the duties paid in these cases,
such goods frequently sold in the colonies at lower prices than they
could be sold for in England itself; and certain exceptions, such as
Portuguese wines, and salt for the fisheries, were of especial benefit
to New England. Indeed, it is noteworthy that the New England colonies,
although the least desirable part of the Empire from the English
standpoint, and constantly giving trouble politically, were nevertheless
accorded particularly considerate treatment from time to time, within
the limits of the imperial system. Under the Commonwealth, in 1644, they
had been exempted from the payment of all English import and export
duties, which naturally gave them a great advantage over the other
colonies, and made them the envy of the Empire.[756] A dozen years
later, by an act of Parliament, foreign ships were allowed to carry fish
from both the Newfoundland and New England fisheries, nullifying to that
extent the Act of 1650; and, after the Restoration, their trade was
specifically exempted from certain onerous clauses in the Navigation
Acts, as then interpreted, although that of the other colonies was
not.[757]
Footnote 756:
_Interregnum, Acts and Ordinances_, vol. I, p. 571.
Footnote 757:
Beer, _Origins_, pp. 397, 114.
As to the success of the above acts, there can now be little question,
and their former condemnation on economic grounds has given place to the
recognition of the fact that they did indeed secure the objects
intended, and that the welfare of the Empire as a whole, as well as that
of England herself, was promoted by them. The merchant marine was
doubled in eighteen years, the Dutch and other competitors beaten off,
and the Empire, and notably New England, greatly increased in power and
wealth.
As we have already indicated, however, European imperial theory in the
seventeenth century had one serious defect. It failed to take account of
human nature in the colonist. Like so many modern theories which
consider the state as all, and the individual as nothing, it made the
blunder of treating the abstraction as human, and the human as an
abstraction. It asked too much of the individual, and, entirely apart
from selfish motives, which were found in the colonies quite as much as
in the mother-country, it almost of necessity subordinated the interests
of the former to those of the latter. The success of the Empire as a
whole was doubtless far more dependent upon the strength and prosperity
of England than upon the fortunes of any individual colony; but that was
a point of view more likely to be appreciated by the contemporary
citizens at home, and the historians of a later day, than by the
contemporary colonist, who saw his particular interests made to suffer
for those of the Empire, and his local pride constantly wounded by a
sense of subordination to a power three thousand miles away. For in all
the difficulties between England and her colonies, we continually have
to come back to the element of distance. What made the acts of the
government seem autocratic was not the fact that the colonists were not
directly represented in Parliament,—for neither were a large number of
Englishmen at home,—but that, by virtue of the effects of distance, the
central government was external to the colonists, in a sense in which it
never was to the unrepresented Englishmen in England itself. It is
difficult to see how any system of representation could have been
devised which would have improved the position of the colonies, although
representation in the English Parliament was proposed by Barbadoes as
early as 1652.[758] There was, in fact, no original thought contributed
by any of the colonies, which was of practical use in devising any
better scheme of imperial control than that which England was gradually
evolving. During the formative period, the colonies offered nothing of a
constructive character to the solution of the problem, and contented
themselves with a purely obstructionist attitude of attempting to ignore
or oppose any measure which they deemed in conflict with their local
interests.
Footnote 758:
_Cal. State Pap., Col., 1574-1660_, p. 373. _Cf._ _The Groans of the
Plantations_ (London, 1689), pp. 15 _f._, 23 _f._
At more than one period, English colonists have been accused of
believing that “it is the undoubted right of every Englishman to settle
where he likes, to behave as he sees fit, and to call upon the
Mother-Country to foot the bill.”[759] This, however, is not merely a
colonial characteristic: it is the spirit developed upon every frontier,
as the later history of American westward expansion may be called upon
to illustrate; and, as we have pointed out, the whole chain of colonies
formed the long encircling frontier of England. The spirit of stubborn
resistance to any interference with their legal rights, or even with
their mere freedom of action, was quite as often found in the
island-colonies of both France and England as it was in the continental
ones now included in the United States. The residents of Barbadoes, for
example, in a memorial condemning the Navigation Act of 1651, used
language which has a ring that has often been considered peculiarly
American. After denying that Parliament had any jurisdiction over them,
because they were unrepresented, the settlers went on to say that, if
they could not obtain a peaceful settlement of the dispute, yet “wee
will not alienate ourselves from those old heroick virtues of true
Englishmen to prostitute our freedom and privileges to which we are
borne to the will and opinion of any one; neither do wee think our
number so contemptible, nor our resolution so weake as to be forced or
perswaded to so ignoble a submission, and we cannot think that there are
any amongst us who are soe simple and soe unworthily minded, that they
would not rather chuse a noble death than forsake their ould liberties
and privileges.”[760]
Footnote 759:
_Acts Privy Council, Colonial, 1613-1680_, p. xxix.
Footnote 760:
R. H. Schomburgk, _History of Barbadoes_ (London, 1848), pp. 706 _ff._
_Cf._, for a similar spirit in Bermuda, Beer, _Old Colonial System_,
vol. II, p. 99.
In spite of the nobility of the sentiment, however, the position
assumed, as was frequently the case in Massachusetts, was in fact
unwarranted from a strictly legal point of view. Had the stand taken by
England on important points in the long colonial controversy been indeed
illegal, the problem would have been enormously simplified. As a matter
of fact, it was rather the contentions of the colonists which were, from
the strict technical standpoint, the illegal ones.[761] But the real
questions were not questions of law, although, with the instincts of
their race, the Englishmen on both sides of the water fought them out as
if they were. One might as well have passed laws to forbid a boy
outgrowing his clothes, as to forbid rapidly developing and
far-separated colonies from outgrowing the doctrine of a centralized
imperial sovereignty. This fact, which is now wholly admitted by the
most patriotic Englishmen, both at home and in the dominions, was
unfortunately beyond the ken of seventeenth-century thought.
Footnote 761:
_Cf._ McIlwain, _High Court of Parliament_, pp. 364 _ff._
The attitude of the most powerful colony in New England had been
foreshadowed from the very beginning. The transfer of the Massachusetts
charter to the colony itself had obviously been for the purpose of
escaping as far as possible from the jurisdiction of the English courts,
and establishing a virtually independent government, under a strained
construction of that document. We have already seen how the colony had
arrogated to itself sovereign powers, how it had over and over refused
appeals to the home courts and Crown, how it had erected fortifications,
and taken other military measures to resist by force the assertion of
her authority by England, and how it had made treaties of both war and
peace with foreign powers. In 1652, it established a mint, the coins
having the famous device of the pine tree and the word “Massachusetts”
on one side, and “New England” and the date on the other, but with no
recognition of the king.[762] Even the mere oath of allegiance was
refused whenever possible, although required by the charter itself.[763]
All of these acts represented a consistent policy, openly avowed among
themselves by the leaders, of disputing any claims of the home country
to any authority whatsoever over the colony.
Footnote 762:
_Massachusetts Records_, vol. IV, pt. i, pp. 84, 104. The right to
coin money was occasionally granted in the early charters, but not in
that of Massachusetts.
Footnote 763:
_Cf._ the form of oath in _Massachusetts Records_, vol. IV, pt. ii, p.
201. In 1665, under pressure from the Royal Commission, the General
Court agreed that it would “order the taking of the oath of
allegeance, according as the charter comands.” _Ibid._, p. 206.
From time to time, crises in its affairs brought out official
declarations of its attitude. Owing to the exigencies of the Civil War
in England, Parliament had issued commissions to certain officers of the
merchant marine, authorizing them to make prizes of any vessels which
they might find in the royal service. In the summer of 1644, one of
these officers, a Captain Stagg, appeared in an armed ship in Boston
harbor, and there made prize of a Bristol ship, according to his orders.
A tumult was raised, and many of the magistrates and clergy, asserting
that “the people's liberties” had been violated, were in favor of
forcing the release of the seized vessel. A majority, however, decided
that the Parliament's commission must be recognized; for, if its
authority were denied in this, then the foundation of the colony's
patent also would be denied, and if they relied solely upon their Indian
purchases to give them title to the country, they would have to renounce
“England's protection, which were a great weakness in us, seing their
care hath been to strengthen our liberties and not overthrow them”; and,
also, if they should by opposing the Parliament “cause them to forsake
us, we could have no protection or countenance from any, but should lie
open as a prey to all men.” The way for resistance at any time, however,
was left open by declaring that, by the course of affairs in England,
the Parliament had taught that “_salus populi_ is _suprema lex_” and
that, in case that body should ever prove of a “malignant spirit,” “we
may make use of _salus populi_ to withstand any authority from thence to
our hurt.” During the discussion, some had maintained that by their
patent the colony was subject “to no other power but among ourselves”;
but that was denied.[764]
Footnote 764:
J. Winthrop, _History_, vol. II, p. 223 _f._
Two years later, however, in connection with the Dr. Child petition, and
the order of the English Commissioners concerning Samuel Gorton, the
local aspects of which have been discussed in a previous chapter, the
General Court undertook to define the colony's relations to England more
definitely. While there was some difference of opinion, the majority of
the magistrates and of the clergy consulted took the stand that by the
charter they had “absolute power of government,” with authority to “make
laws, to erect all sorts of magistracy, to correct, punish, pardon,
govern, and rule the people absolutely,” without the interposition of
any superior power. They denied that any appeal lay against any of their
proceedings, or that they were bound, “further than in a way of
justification,” to make answer to any complaints against them in
England. They drew a distinction between corporations within England and
those without, asserted that plantations were above the rank of ordinary
corporations, and added that “our allegiance binds us not to the laws of
England any longer than while we live in England, for the laws of the
parliament of England reach no further, nor do the King's writs under
the great seal.” They did, indeed, acknowledge some sort of shadowy and
undefined allegiance, and claimed protection by the mother-country as a
right.[765]
Footnote 765:
J. Winthrop, _History_, vol. II, pp. 341, 345, 354, _f._, 352.
This theory of virtual independence was reasserted by the Court in the
year following the Restoration, with the addition that they conceived
that “any imposition prejudicial to the country, contrary to any just
law” not repugnant to the laws of England, was an infringement of their
rights, and that the colony was privileged to defend itself, even by
force of arms, against any who should attempt its “destruction,
invasion, detriment or annoyance.”[766] The duties of allegiance were
defined somewhat more exactly than they had been fifteen years earlier,
and somewhat differently; but any sovereign rights of the English
government over its dependencies in the Empire were denied.[767] More
and more, not merely in theory, but in the form that the colony's
negotiations took with the home authorities through its agents, it was
endeavoring to assume the position, not of an integral part of an
empire, but of an allied sovereign power.
Footnote 766:
_Massachusetts Records_, vol. IV, pt. ii, p. 25.
Footnote 767:
Kaye, _English Colonial Administration under Clarendon_, p. 142.
The attitude of Massachusetts has been noted because her position was
far more pronouncedly anti-English than was that of her sister colonies
in the group. Not only were the governments of Plymouth, Rhode Island,
and Connecticut more democratic than that of Massachusetts, but the
individual citizens of those plantations were quite as tenacious of
their individual rights. Nevertheless, there was a much less aggressive
tone in their relations with the mother-country, and a greater readiness
to acknowledge imperial obligations in return for imperial benefits. As
we have seen, however, the frontier-spirit was at work throughout the
entire range of empire; and, while probably, neither at that time, nor
at any period down to the formation of the union, was the anti-English
element in Massachusetts as large as used to be thought, nevertheless it
was the radical, and not the loyal and conservative element, which
mainly determined her policy, and, gradually, that of New England.
If we wish to apportion fairly the praise and blame due to individuals
and peoples in history,—if indeed it is ever possible to do so,—we must
endeavor to look at their actions from a purely contemporary point of
view, and to ignore long-subsequent results. The modern historian has
come to realize that the qualities of a people, the characteristics of
an epoch, the motives of a great struggle or movement, are by no means
the clear-cut, sharply defined matters sketched by the patriotic writers
of a simpler day. In the enormously complicated development of modern
society from the struggle of class with class, the conflict of interest
with interest, the clash of one element against another, it is
recognized that the contest was at no time between clearly aligned
forces of the powers of darkness and the powers of light. “It is
beginning to be seen,” writes Professor McIlwain, speaking of the early
constitutional struggle at the time of de Montfort, “that men in the
past have really advanced the cause of liberty, though often entirely
unconscious of any such intention, or even when their aims were entirely
selfish.”[768]
Footnote 768:
McIlwain, _High Court of Parliament_, pp. 12 _ff._
The resistance to England by her colonies in the past, on many occasions
and from many quarters, has undoubtedly advanced the cause of liberty
throughout the entire Anglo-Saxon race. The statesmen of England in the
seventeenth century, however, were confronted, as statesmen usually are,
by a practical problem, to be solved in the light of contemporary
knowledge, practices, and beliefs. As we have already noted, neither
Massachusetts, Barbadoes, Bermuda, nor any other of the colonies engaged
in defying and obstructing the attempts of England to unify and govern
the Empire, had any practicable suggestion to offer. They could not be
allowed by England to become independent without running the risk of
their being absorbed by her rivals, France or Spain. Nor did the
colonies themselves wish to lose her protection. Much as they might talk
of armed resistance, the wisest men in them knew that they could not
subsist alone, and preferred the rule of England to that of any of the
other empires. The letter from Pynchon, quoted in an earlier chapter,
the words of Winthrop cited above, as well as other contemporary
evidence, show that the colonists realized and counted upon the power of
England to shield them, so that they should not, as Winthrop said, “lie
open as a prey to all men.”
If England is to be condemned for interpreting the law, which was
indubitably on her side, in too narrow a spirit, and of caring too much
for her own interests in building up those of the Empire, on the other
hand it is difficult to acquit the colonies of a selfishness almost as
great, in their attempts to secure all the advantages of empire, without
being hampered by its restrictions. They insisted, for example, upon
protection as a right, at the very time that they were flouting the
Navigation laws designed to foster that naval strength upon which alone
such protection could be based.
Although the thought of England was constructive in reference to the
Empire, and that of the colonies was destructive, nevertheless
contemporary imperialism was destined to be influenced quite as much by
colonial fact as by English theory. There was much in the imperial
scheme that the colonist, from his isolated position and limited
outlook, failed to see, just as there was much which, because of its
conflict with his individual interest, he refused to accept. But the
facts that failed to fit into the theory were far more obvious to him
than to the Englishman at home. The slower movement of the historical
process in the old world made it more difficult for the Englishman at
the centre of empire to foresee its future; while, owing to the swifter
course of evolution on the periphery of the system, and the
simplifications of the frontier, the colonist was to a great extent
already living in that future without thinking about it at all.
His interests, however, soon became wholly colonial and extremely
provincial, and his political thought became entirely centred upon his
local government, the development of which grew more and more absorbing
in proportion as its political dependence was diminished. But the real
problem of the day was not a domestic one for the several colonies,
profound as were the results to ensue from the development of the local
New England political institutions. The real problem was, how to bring
these local institutions into working relations with the still necessary
sovereign power at the centre of the system. The colonists might offer
legal objections or armed resistance, in the way of criticism, but so
long as they offered no help in devising a workable solution of the
problem, the obligation to do so devolved upon England alone. The rapid
material success of the colonists, their new surroundings, their
isolation, their necessary self-reliance, and their new local pride,
were all developing, not, indeed, new thought, but new feeling. Although
the empire evolved from the Mercantile Theory was a necessary step in
the evolution of the empire of to-day, the Englishman's thought and the
colonists' feelings were bound to clash over it, for the differences
went far deeper than mere economic interests. The problem of composing
those differences, great as it may have seemed to the contemporary
rulers in Europe, or to the protesting settler on every frontier, were
in reality far greater, even, than either of them dreamed. Moreover,
difficult as the question would have been in any case, it had been
rendered far more so by the disorganization of authority at home in the
constitutional struggle. With the return of settled conditions at the
Restoration of the monarchy in England, it seemed as if a serious
attempt were at last to be made to bring order out of the increasing
chaos of the imperial situation. Unfortunately, the combined weakness
and tyranny of the restored Stuarts served to postpone, until after that
dynasty's second dethronement, the success of any efforts to evolve and
apply a considered and consistent colonial policy.
CHAPTER XIII
THE REASSERTION OF IMPERIAL CONTROL
The Puritan Revolution in England had failed to establish a permanent
government, which should provide for the liberty of the individual, and
be consonant with the genius of the English race. The ensuing
restoration of the monarchy was not the return of a king crushing
rebellion by force of arms. It was the peaceful reëstablishment of an
institution demanded by large and important elements among the people,
who considered it as essential to the welfare of the state, and who
believed that the individuals who might occupy the throne had been
taught sufficiently by the events of the preceding two decades not to
attempt to overstep the position that had come to be assigned to them in
the popular view of the constitution. But if, in the sphere of practical
politics, the Revolution had merely shattered the political edifice
without having been able to build another, in the domain of political
thought it had left a rich legacy of ideas, which were to mould into
modern form the institutions now reëstablished by the will of the
people. We have already seen how quickly the anti-English party in
Massachusetts had seized upon one of the most revolutionary of the
Commonwealth doctrines, and proclaimed for themselves, as taught by
Parliament, that “_salus populi_ is _suprema lex_.” These ideas,
however, were not to bear their full fruit until detached from their
theological origin and divested of their religious associations. This
secularization of politics, by the substitution of parties for churches
as political forces, was necessary before further advances could be made
either in religious toleration or in civil liberty; and it was in the
years following the Restoration that the transition occurred both in old
England and in New.[769]
Footnote 769:
_Cf._ Lord Acton, _Modern History_, pp. 205 _f._
In the latter, and more particularly in Massachusetts, theology and
politics had been more closely intertwined than anywhere else in the
Empire, and the earlier course of the struggle to break them asunder has
been indicated in the preceding chapters. As we have there pointed out,
the fundamental idea of theocracy was such as to preclude the
possibility of either civil or religious freedom. The latter was too
evidently fatal to the maintenance of that peculiar form of government
to be allowed, if it could possibly be suppressed; and the former could
not exist in a state in which the entire political power was to be
permanently wielded by a small minority, whose essential qualification
was its assent to an unique form of ecclesiastical organization. To what
lengths the theocratical party in Massachusetts were willing to go in
their efforts to remain in power had been shown by their contest with
the Quakers. Although they were defeated in that struggle, amid many
evidences that religion and politics were becoming more and more
distinct in the minds of the people, the struggle was by no means ended,
nor the transition complete. The political contest with the
mother-country, which was now to begin in earnest, and which has often
been made to seem a struggle for liberty against tyranny, was in large
part, in this early stage, merely a continuance, under another guise, of
the attempt of the theocracy to maintain its position and to defy all
efforts, either from within or without, to interfere with its
unrestricted exercise of power.
The early years of the Restoration mark, in many respects, the beginning
of the modern period of English history; and this is as true of the
Empire as a whole as of the constitutional developments at home. The
far-seeing colonial policy of Clarendon sought to take advantage of the
new outburst of energy which marked the people at that time, in order to
round out and consolidate the nation's colonial possessions; and the
main aspects of imperial policy became military and commercial. The Act
of Uniformity, passed in 1662, and aimed at the Puritans, did not
include the colonies in its operation; and the course of events proved
that the influence of the home authorities was thenceforth to be on the
side of toleration in so far as America was concerned.
When Clarendon entered office, the colonial dependencies of England in
the New World consisted in general of two isolated groups of settlements
on the continent, with island outposts at the extreme north and south. A
study of a map of the period reveals the essential weakness of the
English position from the standpoint both of trade and of imperial
defence. The two most important colonial events in Clarendon's
ministry—the great extension of English continental territory to the
south by the settlement of the Carolinas, and the acquisition of New
Netherland—added enormously to the strength and unity of the Empire. By
the elimination of the Dutch, Clarendon argued that not only would the
northern and southern colonies be relieved of the presence of a hostile
state lying between them, but the menace of a flank or rear attack by
the French would be largely removed from New England by securing the
important military advantages of the Hudson-Mohawk route, the Lake
Champlain gateway, and the friendship of the Iroquois. Moreover, so long
as Holland, which was England's most serious rival in the world's
carrying trade, should remain in possession of New York, New Jersey,
Pennsylvania, and Delaware, it would obviously be almost impossible to
enforce the Navigation Acts, upon the observance of which, it was
rightly believed at that stage, that the Empire's commercial success and
power of defense almost wholly depended.
In this last respect, however, New England, although settled ostensibly
by loyal Englishmen, was almost as much of a danger as was New
Netherland, settled by the Empire's rivals. New England's foreign
commerce, which had amounted to very little before the English Civil
War, had grown rapidly with the prosperity of the West-Indian sugar
colonies, and by the time of the Restoration had assumed considerable
proportions, both with the other colonies and with foreign countries.
But New England merchants paid almost no attention to the laws of
trade.[770] In 1665, Captain Leverett, who had seized a Dutch vessel
from Amsterdam trading at Boston, was strongly censured by the
Massachusetts General Court, which announced that such seizures under
the Navigation Acts would not be permitted “without the consent or
allowance of authoritie heere established”; and the officer escaped
severer punishment only by apologies and by solemnly protesting his
fidelity to the local administration.[771] Two years later, and again in
1658, Rhode Island officially proclaimed free trade with the Dutch; and
in 1660, Connecticut, through her governor, denied that she had any laws
not permitting it.[772]
Footnote 770:
Hutchinson, _History_, vol. I, pp. 174, 179.
Footnote 771:
_Massachusetts Records_, vol. IV, pt. i, p. 229.
Footnote 772:
_R. I. Records_, vol. I, pp. 356, 389; _New York Colonial Documents_,
vol. XIV, p. 459. In the same year, the directors of the Dutch West
India Company wrote to Stuyvesant that he should treat the English
frigate, “which lies at New Haven and has already threatened the
communication between the Manhattans and New England,” as a pirate.
_Ibid._, p. 458. _Cf._ _Ibid._, p. 453.
New England's flouting of imperial authority, and more particularly, the
pretensions of Massachusetts to what was virtually an independent
sovereignty, were becoming notorious throughout the Empire and in
foreign countries. If England should suffer herself to be defied with
impunity by her own subjects, the decline in her prestige could hardly
fail to result in the disintegration of the Empire, both from internal
revolts and from external aggression. It may be pointed out that such a
result, although serious for England, would have been fatal to the
colonies, which would have played the part of Red Riding Hood to the
French wolf.
The colonial policy of Clarendon was probably influenced, in the main,
by the above considerations in respect to North America. But, when the
new government came into power at the Restoration, there were other
reasons why its attention should immediately be turned to New England.
We have already noted how the trampling upon private rights by
Massachusetts in her aggressive policy of annexation, the
dissatisfaction with her government on the part of many of her own
citizens, the persecution endured by the Quakers, and the various
disputes between the colonies over boundaries and other matters, had
occasioned complaints, increasing in number and seriousness. Owing
mainly to the extraordinary ability and persistence which the Bay Colony
had shown in the “gentle art of making enemies” for the past thirty
years, all of the above matters, and others, in their worst possible
light, were promptly brought to the attention of the restored King and
Council. Throughout the years 1660 and 1661, the ghosts of old wrongs
done by Massachusetts seem constantly to have haunted the meetings of
the Council, to plead their cause against that colony. The appeals of
the Quakers, and the effective but temporary succor afforded them, have
already been noted in an earlier chapter. Edward Godfrey, who had been
forced out of his government in Maine by the Massachusetts
Commissioners, filed long reports of his grievances and of “the
usurpations of the Bostoners.”[773] Robert Mason protested against the
annexation of New Hampshire, and disregard of his rights there, as did
Ferdinando Gorges, grandson of old Sir Ferdinando, in reference to his
Province of Maine.[774] Captain Breedon gave a description of the
political conditions in Massachusetts, emphasizing the distinction
between freemen and non-freemen, the pretensions of sovereignty, and the
refusal to use the oath of allegiance, and called attention to the
shelter then being given to Whalley and Goffe, two of the regicide
judges, who had been received with open friendliness by the colonial
authorities.[775] A group of English merchants, who had invested
£15,000—the equivalent of, perhaps, $300,000 to-day—in iron-works at
Lynn, claimed that, for alleged debts, their agents had been arrested,
their property seized, and that they were unable to gain satisfaction in
the colonial courts.[776]
Footnote 773:
_Cal. State Pap., Col., 1661-68_, pp. 12, 18, 26.
Footnote 774:
_Ibid._, pp. 26, 22.
Footnote 775:
_Ibid._, pp. 15 _f._
Footnote 776:
_Ibid._, p. 17. The _Massachusetts Records_ say £13,000. The suit was
brought by Josiah Winslow and Robert Keaynes, the latter being the one
who was involved in the “sow case” and the La Tour episode.
_Massachusetts Records_, vol. IV, pt. i, p. 219.
A number of other petitions were, with one exception, directed against
Massachusetts, and complained mainly of the illegality or disloyalty of
that colony's actions. Giles Sylvester, of Shelter Island, in the
exception noted, asserted that New Haven had wrongfully confiscated
three thousand acres of his land, because he would not acknowledge
himself to be under its government.[777]
Footnote 777:
_Cal. State Pap., Col., 1661-68_, p. 18. The _New Haven Records_ are
silent as to the case; but the Sylvesters were disliked by New Haven,
in part because they sheltered Quakers from persecution. For that
reason, and because he was said to have written a “blasphemous” letter
against the New England magistrates, New Haven seized £100 belonging
to Giles Sylvester until he should give satisfaction, if the charges,
which were noted as hearsay, should be proved. Considering that the
New Haven settlers were mere squatters without any legal rights, that
Sylvester properly denied their jurisdiction over him, and that the
amount, equivalent to about $2000 to-day, was illegally seized on
merely hearsay evidence that Sylvester had criticized them, the case
may be taken as showing the possibilities for strangers of Puritan
colonial justice. _New Haven Records_, vol. II, p. 364.
Of more interest, however, than these petitions for the righting of
individual wrongs, were the information and advice given by Samuel
Maverick, who happened to be in England at the return of Charles.
Maverick, as we have seen, had been living in Massachusetts some years
before John Endicott or John Winthrop had thought of going there. For
nearly forty years, since 1624, he had watched its development, and, as
he possessed considerable ability and a fairly sound judgment, in
addition to his almost unique personal knowledge of the colony's
history, his opinion would naturally carry weight with the English
authorities. He had steadily opposed the political and religious policy
of the Massachusetts leaders, and had been one of the signers of the
Child petition in 1646. In the letters which, for some years following
1660, he frequently wrote to Lord Clarendon, his complaints of the past
occupy a minor position, and his plans for the reorganization of the
colonies evidently either coincided with those of the minister or
largely helped to form them.
His suggestions embraced the elimination of the Dutch danger by the
taking of New Netherland, for which he rightly thought that a small
force would suffice. In view of the religious intolerance, the political
disabilities, the pronounced disloyalty, the encroachments and boundary
disputes, in evidence in New England, he also advised the strengthening
of the royal control. He suggested that the oath of allegiance be
insisted upon; that the colonial laws be revised so as to agree as
nearly as possible with those of England; that writs be issued in the
king's name; that liberty of conscience be allowed; that the franchise
be given to all freeholders, and the bounds of every patent accurately
determined.[778] As he estimated that three fourths of the people were
loyal, and that the greater part of the Massachusetts non-freemen would
favor the plan, he looked for no resistance; and although he suggested
sending out a commission, he thought that no force would be necessary
except for the capture of New Netherland. He certainly knew the colonies
well, and, in part at least, may have been right in his assumptions.
Outside of the government clique in Massachusetts there was undoubtedly
a party of substantial men who would have welcomed such a settlement of
matters, and the local authorities there were apparently doubtful as to
how far their course of opposition to England would be acquiesced in by
the country at large, should all the facts become known.
Footnote 778:
_Clarendon Papers_ (New York Historical Society), pp. 21, 27, 35 _f._,
43.
On the other hand, if the years following the Restoration marked the
beginning of modern England, no less did they embrace the actual
beginning of American history. The first settlers were in no real sense
Americans. They were Englishmen, with English associations, connections,
and habits of thought. Their natures were not altered fundamentally by
sailing to a land where the sun rose five hours later. The remoteness of
that land from the mother-country, and the frontier conditions which
prevailed in it did, indeed, change, gradually but profoundly, the
attitude of the settlers toward many matters. But that took time, and it
was only with the rise of the second generation, which knew nothing of
England by personal experience; which had no close ties with the
home-land; whose minds and characters, for the worse as well as for the
better, were wholly the products of the frontier, and whose interests
and outlook were entirely provincial, that an American, as distinct from
an English, strain may be said to appear in the history of our common
race. New England had been settled for approximately a generation when
the Restoration occurred, and there must have been, by then, a
considerable element of native-born colonials from twenty to thirty
years old. If, however, the ties which bound these younger citizens to
England were looser, their education was poorer, their religious
feelings weaker, and their opposition to the old theocratic policy
stronger.
It is impossible, from these conflicting factors, and with only the
evidence at hand, to say how nearly right was Maverick's estimate of the
people's loyalty; but he was certainly wrong in believing that it would
stand the test of taxes imposed from above, or of blundering and
tactless officials. He was right, however, in urging that comprehensive
reforms be undertaken in colonial management, and that the case was
urgent in that it would become more difficult year by year. Something,
indeed, required to be done, for the good of the colonies as well as of
the Empire; and could it have been done wisely and tactfully, this was
undoubtedly the moment to have accomplished it.
All those interested in New England could not fail to recognize, with
varying emotions, that the situation had altered. The possibility that
England might at last be able to exercise authority over her
dependencies could bode nothing but evil to the rulers of Massachusetts,
in view of their record, theological beliefs, and political aspirations.
To the proprietors of Maine and New Hampshire, on the other hand, it
meant the possibility of recovering their properties, which, in turn,
portended unsettlement and trouble for the inhabitants of those
provinces. For, although the course of Massachusetts in annexing the
eastern settlements had been overbearing, illegal, and unscrupulous, the
inhabitants were undoubtedly better off than they would have been under
absentee proprietors, whose main interest would be in land-titles and
taxes. Connecticut and New Haven, which were not possessed of any
charters, and were exercising the powers of government without any
warrant, could not but be anxious for the future; and Rhode Island,
hoping, perhaps, for aid against her selfish and aggressive neighbors,
hastened to proclaim the King within her borders.[779]
Footnote 779:
_R. I. Records_, vol. I, p. 432 (October 18, 1660).
In 1661, John Winthrop the younger, then, and for fifteen years
following, Governor of Connecticut,[780] was appointed as agent to go to
England, in order to present his colony's address to the King and, if
possible, to procure a charter.[781] He was instructed to try to secure
one as nearly like that of Massachusetts as might be, though this seems
to have been considered improbable of attainment. He was also to have
the bounds extended southward to Delaware Bay, and eastward to Plymouth,
thus cynically ignoring the rights, legal or not, of New Netherland, New
Haven, and Rhode Island. This conscienceless imperialism, which the
colonists would have denounced as tyranny and usurpation if indulged in
by England, was oddly balanced by New England conservatism in money
matters; for Connecticut's agent was instructed, in case he should be
unable to acquire all of the coast to Virginia, to content himself with
reaching the Hudson River, as the colony did “not judge it requisite to
expend money upon a Pattent.”[782]
Footnote 780:
The law against serving two successive terms was repealed May 17,
1660. _Conn. Col. Records_, vol. I, p. 347.
Footnote 781:
_Ibid._, pp. 367 _ff._, 582.
Footnote 782:
_Ibid._, pp. 580 _f._, 581 _n._
As a matter of fact, however, an expenditure was made of about £500;
and, possibly as a result of the judicious disposal of this sum among
the needy courtiers about the throne, Winthrop secured a charter so
liberal in its terms as to serve as the constitution of colony and state
until 1818.[783] It created a corporation upon the place, provided for
exactly the form of government which the colonists already enjoyed,
permitted them to erect courts and make laws, and defined their bounds
as extending from “Narragansett river, commonly called Narragansett
Bay,” to the Pacific Ocean.[784] These new limits not only included a
large strip of Dutch territory and almost the whole of Rhode Island, but
wiped out New Haven entirely.
Footnote 783:
_Ibid._, p. 369. _Cf._ A. Johnston, _Connecticut_ (Boston, 1887), pp.
17 _ff._
Footnote 784:
_Cal. State Pap., Col., 1661-68_, pp. 87 _f._ (April 23, 1662).
The latter colony had made no effort to secure a patent since 1645, when
the agent dispatched for that purpose had been drowned in the ill-fated
and mysterious ship that had carried down with it, not only the
political hopes, but the financial fortunes, of the colonists.[785]
There had been a growing element in the colony, as in Massachusetts,
which was opposed to its theocratical government, and about the time of
the Restoration, this opposition was giving Davenport and his followers
much trouble. To the demand of sundry non-freemen that the franchise be
extended, the New Haven Court had replied that they could not commit
“weighty civill or military trusts into the hands of either a crafty
Achitophell or a bloody Joab,” and that any one who should make such
suggestions would be considered “troublers of our peace and disturbers
of our Israell.” They asserted that to grant a voice in the government
to any but church members would be to defeat the main end of the
plantation, from “which we cannot be perswaded to divert.”[786] This was
exactly the stand and reasoning persisted in by the Massachusetts
leaders at the same time. Both groups stood stubbornly with their backs
toward the future, and their eyes on Judea, attempting to block the path
to individual liberty with the whole strength of civil power and
religious prejudice. They as little understood the new day which was
dawning as did the restored Stuarts in England; and the New England
theocrats and the English monarchs were at one in their resistance to
the forces of freedom.
Footnote 785:
_New Haven Records_, vols. I, pp. 149, 211, and II, p. 519. The early
references to the real and phantom ships are gathered in Atwater, _New
Haven_, pp. 537 _ff._
Footnote 786:
_New Haven Records_, vol. II, p. 404; _cf._ pp. 429 _ff._
The disaffected element in New Haven, however, was large and important;
and when Connecticut's imperialistic ambitions were gratified, and she
obtained a charter which gave her all her neighbor's territory, a very
large proportion of New Haven's inhabitants indicated that they
preferred the “Christless rule” of Connecticut, with its property
qualification for the franchise, to that of the New Haven churches.
Throughout the whole process of absorption of the smaller colony by its
now aggrandized neighbor, both the action and the manner of Connecticut
are difficult to defend. New Haven, however, could not have stood alone
much longer. Her commercial hopes had been proved without foundation;
she had unnecessarily, but seriously, offended the English Crown; her
theocratic government was inflexible; and her annexation by the more
democratic and progressive commonwealth was wholly an advantage, then
and later.[787]
Footnote 787:
For the events connected with the transfer, _vide_ _New Haven
Records_, vol. II, pp. 513 _ff._; _Acts United Colonies_, vol. II, pp.
308 _ff._, 318, 324 _f._; _Conn. Col. Records_, vol. II, pp. 407, 415,
437, 586 _ff._
In the ill-defined bounds of the Connecticut charter lay the seeds of
many a future contest; but the effect upon Rhode Island was as immediate
as upon New Haven. As we have already seen, the Narragansett country had
for some time been a matter of controversy between the three adjoining
colonies. As Connecticut now extended to the Bay, by royal grant,
Massachusetts was seemingly excluded, and the contest lay between Rhode
Island's patent rights and those conferred in her neighbor's new
charter. John Clarke, in England at the same time as Winthrop,
immediately petitioned the King for a new charter for Rhode Island.[788]
This was granted, its governmental provisions being virtually the same
as those of the Connecticut patent, except for the notable clause that,
as the Rhode Islanders were then holding forth the “livelie experiment
that a most flourishing civell state may stand and best bee maintained
... with a full libertie in religious concernments,” therefore no person
in the colony should ever be “molested, punished, disquieted, or called
in question, for any differences in opinione in matters of religion,”
any law enacted in England notwithstanding.[789] This patent, like the
Connecticut one, was so liberal, and so well drawn, that it remained the
constitution of colony and state for one hundred and eighty years.[790]
Footnote 788:
_R. I. Records_, vol. I, pp. 485 _ff._, 489 _ff._
Footnote 789:
_Ibid._, vol. II, pp. 4 _ff._; _Cal. State Pap., Col., 1661-68_, pp.
148 _ff._
Footnote 790:
For the theory that these exceptionally liberal charters were granted
as part of a policy to alienate the southern colonies from
Massachusetts, _vide_ Kaye, _Colonial Administration under Clarendon_,
pp. 75 _ff._ His arguments for placing the important paper, 706, in
_Cal. State Pap., Col., 1661-68_ under date 1666-67, instead of 1664,
seem conclusive.
While the issue of the charter was pending, Clarke and Winthrop had
submitted the matter of the boundary between their two colonies to
arbitration; and as a result, it had been agreed between them that the
dividing line should be the Pawcatuck River, henceforth to be called the
Narragansett.[791] In the Rhode Island charter, therefore, that colony's
western boundary was made as agreed upon, the “clause in a late grant”
to Connecticut notwithstanding.[792] Connecticut, however, which had now
become even more reckless in its career of land-grabbing than
Massachusetts, repudiated its agent's act, and undertook to enforce its
claims to Rhode Island's richest territory.[793] Not only was
Connecticut's attitude selfish and unjust, but the dispute could not
fail to add another legitimate reason for the exercise of imperial
control by England. As Sir Thomas Holdich points out, “It was the man
with the spade,—the agriculturist,—who first found the necessity for
definite boundaries”;[794] and while the fur trade or other activities
of rival colonizing nations, or of separate colonies of the same nation,
might give rise to disputes over frontiers, the extreme frequency and
bitterness of such quarrels in New England were largely due to the type
of political and economic life developed there. Without question, their
adjustment demanded the intervention of the higher power of the home
country.
Footnote 791:
Agreement in _R. I. Records_, vol. I, p. 518; _Cal. State Pap., Col.,
1661-68_, pp. 148 _ff._
Footnote 792:
_R. I. Records_, vol. II, pp. 18 _ff._
Footnote 793:
_Conn. Col. Records_, vol. I, pp. 407, 435; Bowen, _Boundary
Disputes_, 33 _ff._
Footnote 794:
_Political Frontiers and Boundary Making_ (London, 1916), p. 10.
At the time of Charles's return, Massachusetts was represented in
England by John Leverett, as her agent, who immediately sent word of the
complaints beginning to pour in against the colony. As a result, the
General Court dispatched addresses both to the King and to Parliament,
and appointed Richard Saltonstall and Henry Ashurst to assist Leverett
in the controversy now imminent.[795] In the letter to Charles, the
Court prayed that monarch, now “King over your British Israel, to cast a
favorable eye upon your poore Mephibbosheth”; and defended themselves
against sundry charges, particularly those concerning the killing of the
Quakers. “Such was theire daingerous, impetuous and desperat
turbulency,” the writers affirmed, that the magistrates had perforce had
“to keepe the passage with the point of the sword held towards them”;
and the Court unblushingly added that, had the Quakers not been
restrained, “there was too much cause to feare that wee ourselves must
quickly have died.”[796]
Footnote 795:
_Massachusetts Records_, vol. IV, pt. i, pp. 449 _ff._
Footnote 796:
_Massachusetts Records_, vol. IV, pt. i, p. 451.
In the private instructions to the colony's agents, they were ordered to
gain the interest of as many in Parliament and near the King as
possible, to secure the renewal of the charter, to see that no superior
power should be imposed, or appeals admitted, and even, if possible, to
have the colony free from the English customs duties. If called upon to
answer any charges embarrassing to the colony, they were instructed to
plead lack of authority.[797] The agents seem, however, to have done
nothing in England to aid the colony; and Leverett's remark that, if
forced to admit appeals to the home country, the colonists would deliver
New England to the Spaniards, although stupid enough, could hardly add
to the government's idea of the colonists' loyalty or discretion.[798]
Footnote 797:
_Ibid._, pp. 455 _f._
Footnote 798:
Maverick, in _Clarendon Papers_, p. 30.
Although the King's answer to the address was conciliatory, the
Massachusetts Court, upon its receipt, appointed a committee to
determine what, in its opinion, were the legal relations between the
colony and England. Their report, which we have already discussed in the
preceding chapter, considered Massachusetts to be virtually an
independent sovereign state, with the right to defend itself by force of
arms against any “annoyance.”[799] The following spring, a thousand
acres of land were granted to the Artillery Company of Middlesex, orders
were issued for the better accommodation of the troopers of Essex, and
work was ordered rushed in order to complete the fortifications on
Castle Island.[800]
Footnote 799:
_Massachusetts Records_, vol. IV, pt. i, p. 25; _cf._ Hutchinson,
_History_, vol. I, pp. 230 _f._
Footnote 800:
_Massachusetts Records_, vol. IV, pt. i, pp. 45, 44, 42 _f._
Meanwhile, “considering the weight of theire occasions in England,” the
Court appointed Simon Bradstreet and the Reverend John Norton to present
a second address to the King, and to “indeavor to take off all scandal
and objections” against the colony.[801] Although their work in England
was bitterly denounced as a failure, by some of the oligarchy, they
seem, in reality, to have done fairly well, and the letter which the
King next dispatched to the General Court was mild in tone and required
nothing that did not make for the greater liberty of the individual
colonist. After expressing himself as well pleased with the colony's
agents, the monarch confirmed the charter, and granted pardon to all who
had infringed its terms in the past, as well as to any in the colony who
had committed offenses against him in the late Civil War. Although he
partially withdrew his protection from the Quakers, he required that any
person wishing to worship according to the Book of Common Prayer be
allowed to do so, and that persons of good and honest lives be admitted
to the Communion, and their children to baptism. The franchise was to be
granted to all those of competent estate, orthodox in religion, and not
vicious in their lives. He also required that the oath of allegiance be
taken, and that justice be administered in his name.[802]
Footnote 801:
_Massachusetts Records_, vol. IV, pt. i, p. 37.
Footnote 802:
_Cal. State Pap., Col., 1661-68_, pp. 93 _f._
The results of an increase in religious liberty were as much dreaded by
the leaders and their followers in the theocracy as was any limitation
placed by England upon those powers which they had endeavored to make
absolute. At a meeting of the General Court in October, at which the
letter was read, the atrociously brutal law against the Quakers was
immediately put in force again, and the only compliances with the King's
requirements were the order that legal processes should run in his name,
and the issuing of directions that his letter be published. Other action
toward complying with its terms was postponed until the next meeting of
the Court. At that meeting, seven months later, the letter was merely
referred to a committee, which was to report again at the next meeting,
five months later still; at which, again, nothing was done. It was the
old policy, advised by the clergy nearly thirty years earlier, of “avoid
or protract,” of ignoring and obstructing. However such a policy might
fit an emergency under peculiar conditions, it obviously could not form
the basis of permanent relations between organic parts of an
empire.[803]
Footnote 803:
_Massachusetts Records_, vol. IV, pt. i, pp. 58 _f._, 74.
Trouble also arose for the colony from another direction. It was
impossible, in ordinary justice, that England should ignore the
complaints of the heirs of the original Gorges and Mason regarding the
illegal encroachments of Massachusetts upon the lands claimed by them.
Mason's petition was referred to a committee of seven. Of these Mason
was one, although obviously the English government should not have
permitted him to be at once plaintiff and judge. But, aside from
irrelevant strictures upon the policy of Massachusetts, the committee
made a reasonable report, finding that Mason had inherited a good title
from his grandfather, and that for many years Massachusetts had publicly
recognized the line three miles north of the Merrimac as her true
boundary.[804]
Footnote 804:
The report is in Belknap _(History of New Hampshire_, vol. I, pp. 300
_f._), who reprinted it from a copy in the Recorder's office of
Rockingham County. Doyle states that there is no copy among the State
Papers. _Puritan Colonies_, vol. II, p. 139 _n._ That given in _Cal.
State Pap., Col., 1661-68_, p. 75, however, while differing in a few
minor particulars from that given by Belknap, is evidently the same
document. For references to the “bound-house,” _cf._ _Massachusetts
Records_, vol. I, p. 167; _New Hampshire Provincial Papers_, vol. I,
pp. 146, 249, 330; _Clarendon Papers_, p. 71; J. Dow, _History of Town
of Hampton_, vol. I, pp. 7 _f._
Meanwhile, Gorges, who had petitioned the King in April, 1661, for
possession of his province, did not wait for the process of law, but
appointed commissioners to go to Maine, proclaim the King, collect the
quit-rents, and establish a government, notifying Massachusetts of their
actions.[805] That colony promptly ordered that all the inhabitants
should yield obedience only to herself and sent commissioners into the
province with instructions to suppress any disobedience by the use of
force, as they should see fit.[806] Under this conflict of authorities,
the affairs of Maine, the inhabitants of which province were scattered
and somewhat unruly, were bound to drift into anarchy. Daniel Gookin, of
Boston, wrote a conciliatory letter to Gorges, explaining the conditions
from the standpoint of the good of the people; but, a year later, the
King, upon a report of the technical legal aspects of the case, and
apparently taking into consideration the losses of Gorges's royalist
grandfather, ordered the inhabitants to submit to Gorges, or to give
reasons to the contrary without delay.[807]
Footnote 805:
_Cal. State Pap., Col., 1661-68_, pp. 22, 63 _f._
Footnote 806:
_Massachusetts Records_, vol. IV, pt. i, pp. 70, 76 _f._
Footnote 807:
_Cal. State Pap., Col., 1661-68_, pp. 145, 214.
The conditions in New England, in 1663, thus clearly necessitated the
sending out of a Royal Commission. The legal disputes between
Massachusetts and the English heirs of Gorges and Mason could not fairly
be left to the decision of Massachusetts courts. Nor was the question
one of technical legal title alone; for, as the committee reporting on
the Mason claims had themselves pointed out, “publique interest and
goverment” were “much intermixt and concerned with the private interest
of the peticioners.”[808] Moreover, for nearly thirty years, not only
had boundary disputes between all the New England colonies been growing
steadily more complicated and serious, but the colonies had proved
themselves incapable, in practically every case, of settling them
permanently and amicably. The contests could evidently be determined, in
the absence of any superior power, only by the use of force by the
claimants; and with the consistent attitude of Massachusetts and the now
rapidly increasing aggressiveness of Connecticut, peace was seriously
imperiled, and the fate of the smaller colonies practically sealed.
Rhode Island, at once the most loyal and the most devoted to liberty of
thought and action, was already in imminent danger of annihilation. In
the disputed Narragansett country, the Atherton Company claimed rights
which could not be justly adjudicated by any of the three colonies
pretending jurisdiction, and prayed the King for intervention.[809]
Footnote 808:
Belknap, _New Hampshire_, vol. I, p. 301.
Footnote 809:
_Cal. State Pap., Col., 1661-68_, pp. 143 _f._
The accounts of practically every observer agreed as to the disloyalty
of Massachusetts and her assumption of sovereignty, which were obviously
confirmed by her official acts. In addition, the attitude of all the
colonies to the English leaders during the Revolution, the neglect of
all, except Rhode Island, promptly to proclaim the King, their
protection of the regicide judges, and the refusal to observe the
Navigation Acts, raised suspicions against them all. There was, besides,
the religious discrimination by Massachusetts, depriving her citizens of
rights which they would otherwise have enjoyed as Englishmen, and the
cases of alleged injustice in colonial courts affecting English citizens
with property rights in the colonies. In the absence of a royal
governor, or any other means by which the home government could secure
first-hand information, there was no course to follow except to appoint
a Commission to go out and secure it, if the exceedingly complicated
situation was to be handled intelligently. The government had shown
itself more than willing to treat with the colonies through their
agents; but Massachusetts purposely denied to them any authority, so as
to obstruct and delay any action—an outworn policy which had now become
transparently clear to the home government.
The attitude of Massachusetts was, in fact, the crux of the whole
problem. The theocratical party there had developed a theory,—based
apparently upon an extension of the church-covenant idea through the
plantation covenant,—that the charter itself was a covenant which
reserved no rights to the king and imperial government save those
specifically mentioned. From this she deduced that her obligation to the
Empire was so tenuous as to be virtually non-existent.[810] However
satisfactorily to themselves the leaders and their followers might spin
such theories, they did not agree with either the economic, political,
or legal facts. At this stage, the economic welfare of the New England
colonies was, of necessity, bound up with that of the Empire, from the
trade of which they would be excluded if they ceased to be parts of it.
Politically, they had to be considered as either in it or out of it,
and, obviously, from the standpoint of abstract justice as well as of
practical administration, they could not consider themselves as now one
and now the other, according to their local interests at a given moment.
Footnote 810:
_Cf._ Hutchinson, _History_, vol. I, pp. 230 _ff._
Nor could it be conceded that, by the granting of the charters, England
had relinquished all rights of control, or the power to determine
whether or not their terms were being complied with. That would have
opened the way to the grossest misuse of power by any of the local
administrations thus created, and would have been against public policy.
Moreover, in practically every charter, including that of Massachusetts,
the clause had appeared that no laws should be passed repugnant to those
of England. Massachusetts had already passed many such, carrying with
them, in some cases, the penalty of capital punishment. The clause
obviously implied that there must be an authority somewhere, which could
decide whether the colonial laws were repugnant or not; and it could
hardly be claimed that the colonial courts which passed them were
intended to be the sole judges of their conformity.[811] This would have
meant that not only the inhabitants of any chartered colony, but the
citizens of all the rest of the Empire having relations with it,
directly or as potential emigrants, would be absolutely at the mercy of
the local government, no matter what that government might do, or
however criminally it might disregard the rights that the charters had
specifically safeguarded. It must not be lost to sight that the
contemporary merchant in England or the West Indies had as legitimate a
right to require that England should protect his legal interests in
Massachusetts or Connecticut as any citizen of the United States to-day
has to expect that his rights will be assured to him in New Mexico or
Alaska. It must also be recalled that America was the heritage of the
English people, much as our West was the heritage of our citizens; and
the Englishman, both for himself and for his children, had as legitimate
an interest in the nature of the government erected in any part of the
Empire as we have in that set up in any part of our territorial domains.
There was little more reason why a group of settlers should preëmpt
Massachusetts, pass laws repugnant to those of England, and hang any
Englishman whose political or religious views were obnoxious to them,
than there would be for the stockholders and officers of a business
corporation in Alaska, who might have been granted land and some minor
police powers, to do the same thing to-day.
Footnote 811:
_Cf._ E. B. Russell, _Review of American Colonial Legislation by the
King in Council_ (Columbia University, 1915), pp. 17 _ff._
If the contentions of Massachusetts were to be allowed,—that she might
pass any laws she chose and be sole judge of them; that she might
trample upon the colonial rights of Englishmen at home, quarrel with her
neighbors, determine her own bounds, be the sole interpreter of the
terms of her charter, and sole judge of whether they had been complied
with; deny that the king's writ passed beyond England, or that the home
country had any right to pass laws affecting the colonies even in their
intercolonial and imperial relations,—then, it must be confessed, there
was no empire. There was merely an imperial anarchy of conflicting local
interests and warring elements, whose only common bond was their claim
that England should protect them against the aggression of foreign and
land-hungry powers.
If the rule of England in the seventeenth century had become tyrannical
and oppressive to the extent that revolution had become justifiable, and
if the colonies had become strong enough, in the state of the world as
it then was, to stand alone, nothing could be said against their openly
throwing off the imperial yoke. The full development of the forces
already at work was, a century later, to bring about that very
consummation, the discussion of which belongs to a later period. That,
however, was not the case as yet, and the position which Massachusetts
assumed was untenable and could eventually lead only to the loss of her
charter, and not to independence. Nor could she profess loyalty in the
most obsequious terms, claim all the military and commercial advantages
of being a part of the Empire, and, at the same time, act as an
independent state. It was a policy which, however unjustifiable, might
be successful, perhaps, when essayed by her as the most powerful member
in a New England confederacy. It could be neither, when the part was
attempted to be played by that same colony in its rôle of an unimportant
dependency in a great empire.
Nor had individual liberty anything to gain in the contest. The only
possible outcome would be the loss of the charter, with all the
possibilities involved in the then immediate dependence upon a Stuart
monarch. At this stage, the real struggle for freedom, intellectual and
political, was against the theocracy. If its leaders lost the game they
were playing, as was practically inevitable, then the liberties of the
colony, as embodied in the charter and related to England, would also be
lost. If, on the other hand, they should by any chance win against the
Crown, then their own power would be greatly strengthened and the
struggle against them increased in difficulty. In either event,
therefore, the liberal element in the colony had everything to fear from
the policy pursued by the leaders. That policy, however, from the
standpoint of the latter, found its justification in the fact that the
suggested alterations in the franchise, and other religious matters,
would end the power of the theocracy, which would surely go down before
liberty of opinion. As the leaders had already hesitated at nothing, not
even the blood of their victims, to maintain their theory of the
church-state, so now they preferred to risk the practically certain loss
of the charter and all its civil privileges, rather than yield to the
claim of individual freedom. Fortunately, in spite of an apparent
temporary success, they were to lose, and England win; and, owing to the
people of England itself, the real cause of liberty was eventually to
gain.
The chaotic state of New England had engaged the attention of the
Council for Plantations and the Privy Council almost from the moment of
the Restoration; while the sending of Commissioners to adjust
differences, and to report on conditions, had been under consideration
since early in 1662.[812] Two years later, action regarding the matters
which had been considered as of prime importance was taken at last, and
a commission was actually sent to New England; and New Netherland, with
little trouble, was wrested from the Dutch. The two objects—of which the
latter was considered the more important—were closely connected, and the
most influential member of the Commission, Colonel Richard Nicolls, was
appointed Governor of the new province of New York. Of the other three
Commissioners, Samuel Maverick was undoubtedly useful, from his great
knowledge of Massachusetts affairs, although otherwise unfitted, from
his strong partisanship; but neither Sir Robert Carr nor George
Cartwright possessed the qualifications to ensure successful results,
although the latter was able and conscientious in his work.[813]
Footnote 812:
_Cal. State Pap., Col., 1661-68_, pp. 22, 24 _f._, 30, 32, 110, 128;
_Acts Privy Council, Colonial, 1613-80_, pp. 308, 338; _Clarendon
Papers_, p. 43. _Cf._ Kaye, _English Colonial Administration under
Clarendon_, pp. 75 _ff._
Footnote 813:
Professor Osgood considered that, “taken as a whole, the appointments
were as wise as under the circumstances could reasonably be expected.”
_American Colonies_, vol. III, p. 172. For the opposition to
Maverick's appointment, _vide_ _Clarendon Papers_, pp. 48 _ff._
Two series of instructions were issued to the Commissioners for their
guidance, the one public and the other confidential, as was also the
custom of Massachusetts in sending agents to England. In the first, it
was ordered that the Commission should consider the best means for
reducing the Dutch, investigate the condition of the Indians and of
public education, and see that the Navigation Acts were observed, and
that, according to the laws of England, no one was debarred from the
free exercise of his religion. In the confidential instructions, these
points were repeated with additional details, the Commissioners being
further required to examine the various charters and the laws passed; to
have, if possible, a General Assembly elected in Massachusetts, in which
the members would be favorably inclined toward the King, and to have an
acceptable governor and commander of the militia appointed or elected.
They were to try to secure the coöperation of the other four colonies,
and, in both sets of orders, were instructed to avoid giving
offense.[814] The King also wrote a conciliatory letter to each of the
colonies, in which he spoke of the calumnies against them, the
difficulty of settling boundary disputes among themselves, and other
matters requiring investigation and settlement.[815] In the commissions
issued to Nicolls and the others, they were empowered to hear complaints
and appeals, and to take measures for settling the peace of the
country.[816]
Footnote 814:
_Cal. State Pap., Col., 1661-68_, pp. 200 _ff._; _N. Y. Col. Docts._,
vol. III, pp. 51 _f._
Footnote 815:
_Ibid._, pp. 61 _ff._
Footnote 816:
_Ibid._, pp. 64 _f._
In Massachusetts the news of the sending of the Commissioners created
considerable alarm, and the General Court passed orders that none of
their force of under-officers or soldiers should be allowed to land,
except unarmed and in small numbers. The fort on Castle Island was
ordered to be manned and prepared, sentries posted, and the charter
hidden.[817]
Footnote 817:
_Massachusetts Records_, vol. IV, pt. ii, pp. 101, 102, 110.
In July, the Commissioners arrived at Boston, and presented their
commissions and the King's letter to the Court, together with that part
of their instructions which related to raising a force against the
Dutch. The request was complied with, and the Court also hastily passed
a new election law, which ostensibly made the franchise independent of a
religious test, but which in practice could have no such effect.
According to the new law, all church members, regardless of property
qualifications, were given the franchise, as before, but non-church
members were required to be freeholders and householders, to present
certificates signed by ministers that they were orthodox in belief and
not vicious in their lives, to be elected as freemen by the General
Court, and to possess an estate which paid a tax of ten shillings in a
single levy. There were other requirements, also; but the fact that not
one man in a hundred was said to have the property qualification
required only from non-church members showed the farcical nature of the
law. The enactment has sometimes been called “shrewd”; but, in reality,
it deceived no one, least of all the Commissioners, and its obvious
disingenuousness served only to prejudice the case of the colony still
further. Yet, in writing to the King, the colonial government stated
that, in passing this law, they had applied themselves “to the utmost to
sattisfy” him in “so farr as doth consist with conscience of our duty
towards God, and the just liberties and priviledges” of their
patent.[818]
Footnote 818:
_Massachusetts Records_, vol. IV, pt. ii, pp. 118, 205, 130. _Cf._
McKinley, _Suffrage Franchise_, pp. 324 _ff._; _Clarendon Papers_, pp.
83 _ff._
Nor was the character of the rest of the petition, or of the letters
which they wrote, asking aid, to Boyle, the head of the Society for
Propagating the Gospel, and to Lord Clarendon, of a sort likely to
improve the opinion held regarding the colony. It was obviously
impossible to comply with their request to withdraw the Commission. In a
just and temperate reply, the King pointed out that investigation by
such a body had been the only method left to the English government to
inform itself as to conditions in the colonies. Nor did Boyle take any
different view of the matter; and Clarendon wrote of the petition: “I am
so much a friend to your colony, that if it had been communicated to
nobody but myself, I should have disswaded the presenting the same to
his Majesty”; and pointed out the impossible character of the complaints
and demands.[819]
Footnote 819:
_Cal. State Pap., Col., 1661-68_, p. 282; Hutchinson, _History_, vol.
I, pp. 464 _f._
The double nature of the Commissioners' duties now served to interrupt
their work in Massachusetts; and until the beginning of the following
year, they were occupied at New Amsterdam, and on the Delaware, in
settling matters in the conquered Dutch colony—among others, the
adjustment of its boundary with Connecticut. The case of the boundary
between that colony and Rhode Island also came up; and although the
final disposition was left for the home government, it was settled, in
so far as the colonies were concerned, by erecting the disputed
territory into a separate province, to be known as the King's Province.
The jurisdiction was given to Rhode Island, while the claims of
Massachusetts and the Atherton Land Company were properly declared
invalid.[820]
Footnote 820:
_Massachusetts Records_, vol. IV, pt. ii, pp. 175 _ff._; _Clarendon
Papers_, pp. 90 _ff._; _Cal. State Pap., Col. 1661-68_, pp. 202, 286.
[Illustration:
Letter from the Earl of Clarendon to the Governor of Connecticut
Original in Massachusetts Historical Society
]
Throughout their dealings with Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Plymouth,
the Commissioners had met with little or no opposition; and it was only
upon their reassembling at Boston, about the first of May, 1665, that
the real struggle began.[821] Endicott had recently died, and Bellingham
had been elected governor. The negotiations between the new government
and the Commissioners, however, were entered upon with some bad feeling
upon both sides. The Commissioners had previously asked that all the
inhabitants be summoned to attend the Court, in order that the King's
views might be made known to them directly; but this somewhat impossible
plan had been discouraged, if not secretly hindered, by the colonial
government, and many false statements regarding the Commission had also
been circulated, tending to throw discredit upon them—all of which they
naturally resented.[822]
Footnote 821:
_Massachusetts Records_, vol. IV, pt. ii, pp. 177.
Footnote 822:
_Ibid._, pp. 173, 179-184.
The Commissioners now made known all of their public instructions, and
the Court made answer to their various requests and accusations. In
regard to some of the minor matters, such as public education, there was
no difficulty; but in regard to the more important ones, except issuing
writs in the King's name, the colony virtually had no case. The new oath
of allegiance, which the Court had had drawn up, had been purposely
vitiated by the insertion of a clause referring to the charter, and can
be considered only as an attempt to deceive the Commissioners and the
home government, which it failed to do. As to ecclesiastical matters,
the Court stated merely that they followed “the word of the Lord,”
which, as they denied any interpretation of that word except their own,
meant that they followed their own opinions, and refused to allow any
one else to have any. Their statement, in a later paper, that “the
authority here have not imposed upon church or people any one particular
forme or order, for the restreijning or limiting them in the exercise of
their devotions towards God,” and their reference to “the great
freedome” in religious matters, is startling in its distortion of the
truth, in view of the laws then on their statute-books, and of their
consistent course of persecution, from the Brownes in 1628 to the last
Quaker hung in 1660. In response to another request of the English
government, at this very time, they flatly denied permission to any
law-abiding citizen to use his prayer-book, on the ground that “it will
disturbe our peace in our present enjoyments.” Referring to the
Navigation Acts, they could make no better defense than to say that they
were not conscious that they had “greatly violated the same,” and that
any laws apparently against them had been repealed.[823]
Footnote 823:
_Massachusetts Records_, vol. IV, pt. ii, pp. 177 _ff._, 200 _f._, 202
_ff._, 220 _f._
It is needless to follow the details of the controversy, which
culminated in the struggle over the question of appeals. These had
already been heard in Rhode Island by the Commissioners, under the
authority of somewhat conflicting clauses in their instructions and
commissions; and it was now undertaken to hear two in Boston. One of
them concerned an individual, who seems to have been of a worthless
sort, and the other, a violation of the Navigation Act. The General
Court refused to allow the proceedings, claimed a breach of the charter,
and officially warned all citizens not to attend the hearings, which
were never held, as the Commissioners had no force to uphold their
authority, even had they cared to employ it.[824] Soon after this, the
Commission left Boston, both the colony and the King's officers making
long reports to the government in England.[825]
Footnote 824:
_Ibid._, pp. 209 _ff._, 216 _ff._
Footnote 825:
_Cal. State Pap., Col., 1661-68_, pp. 341 _ff._; _Massachusetts
Records_, vol. IV, pt. ii, pp. 274 _ff._
The whole contest had now obviously reached the fundamental point of
sovereignty, which was clearly stated in a letter to Massachusetts, a
few weeks later, from Carr, Cartwright, and Maverick, who were then in
New Hampshire. “The King did not grant away his Soveraigntie over you,”
they wrote, “when he made you a Corporation. When His Majesty gave you
power to make wholesome laws and to administer Justice by them, he
parted not with his right of judging whether those laws were wholesom or
whether justice was administered accordingly or no. When His Majesty
gave you authority over such of his subjects as lived within the limits
of your jurisdiction, he made them not your subjects nor you their
supream authority.” Unpalatable as these words may have been to the
Massachusetts Court, there can be no doubt that they expressed the
truth, as did also the Commissioners' warning that “striveing to grasp
too much, may make you hold but a little.” The future was clearly
fore-shadowed. “'Tis possible that the Charter which you so much idolize
may be forfeited,” the Commissioners added, “until you have cleared
yourselves of those many injustices, oppressions, violences, and bloud
for which you are complained against, to which complaints you have
refused to answer.”[826] There was, indeed, to be no other course. If
Massachusetts under her charter should persist in considering herself
superior to the power which had granted it, that power would have no
option but to recognize her complete independence or to annul the
charter.
Footnote 826:
_N. Y. Col. Docts._, vol. III, p. 99.
In New Hampshire, the acts of the three Commissioners were ill-judged
and but little likely to reflect credit upon the King, or to secure the
adherence of the people, while Massachusetts by prompt and forceful
measures asserted her claims in the face of the royal agents.[827] In
Maine, the latter attempted to organize a temporary government, pending
the settlement of the dispute between Massachusetts and Gorges, and they
likewise endeavored, even more unsuccessfully, to set up administrative
machinery in the territory east of Pemaquid, which had been granted to
the Duke of York. Within less than three years, Massachusetts, assisted
by the desire of the inhabitants for a settled government, had once more
taken the province under her jurisdiction, although not without local
opposition.[828]
Footnote 827:
_Massachusetts Records_, vol. IV, pt. ii, pp. 265 _ff._; _New
Hampshire Provincial Papers_, vol. I, pp. 270 _ff._; _N. Y. Col.
Docts._, vol. III, pp. 99 _ff._; _Clarendon Papers_, pp. 72 _ff._;
_Cal. State Pap., Col., 1661-68_, pp. 310 _f._, 314.
Footnote 828:
_N. Y. Col. Docts._, vol. III, p. 101; _Cal. State Pap., Col.,
1661-68_, pp. 191 _f._, 348, 569; _Massachusetts Records_, vol. IV,
pt. ii, pp. 370 _f._, 400 _f._
In what had been considered their most important work, the reduction of
the Dutch and the establishment of the English authority at New York,
the Commissioners had been entirely successful, as they had been also in
their relations with the three southern colonies in New England; and the
settlement of the dispute between Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode
Island, and the Atherton Company was of great benefit to the colonies.
In the matter of Massachusetts, however, they had completely failed.
Three of them advised taking away the charter, while Maverick made
several suggestions, including the prohibiting of trade with the
recalcitrant colony, as did Nicolls also.[829]
Footnote 829:
_N. Y. Col. Docts._, vol. III, p. 102; _Clarendon Papers_, p. 70;
_Cal. State Pap., Col., 1661-68_, p. 416.
In 1666, the King sent a circular letter to the various colonies,
expressing satisfaction with all except Massachusetts, whose claim of
independent sovereignty, he noted, was “a matter of such high
consequence as every man discerns where it must end”; and he commanded
the colony to send four or five agents to England, including Bellingham
and Hathorne, to answer the charges against her.[830] This the Court
flatly refused to do, and so notified the King, though they sent him
their prayers for his eternal happiness.[831] Their refusal, however, by
no means met with unanimous approval among the influential elements in
the colony. A petition was presented to the Court, signed by a hundred
and seventy-one individuals, including such names as Winslow, Brattle,
Gerrish, Hale, Coffin, Perkins, Hubbard, and others of note in Boston,
Salem, Newbury, and Ipswich, while most of the people of Hingham were
said to have signed also, although their deputy refused to deliver their
petition.[832] The signers pleaded that nothing further be done justly
to offend the home government, and that the agents asked for be sent.
They pointed out that “the doubtful interpretation of the words of a
patent, which there can be no reason should ever be construed to the
divesting of a sovereign prince of his royall power over his naturall
subjects and liege people, is too frail a foundation to build such a
transcendent immunity and privilege upon.”[833]
Footnote 830:
_Cal. State Pap., Col., 1661-68_, pp. 372 _f._
Footnote 831:
_Massachusetts Records_, vol. IV, pt. ii, p. 317.
Footnote 832:
_Clarendon Papers_, pp. 127, 132 _ff._; _Massachusetts Records_, vol.
IV, pt. ii, pp. 317 _f._; _Mass. Hist. Soc. Proceedings_, Series II,
vol. VI, pp. 469 _ff._
Footnote 833:
_Clarendon Papers_, p. 133.
But those attempting to maintain the power of the theocracy would not be
turned from their course, though by it they made the eventual loss of
the charter both necessary and certain. Owing to the fact that England
was now at war with both Holland and France, neither time nor thought
could be given to a rebellious colony, and Massachusetts was to be
allowed to go her way for another decade. Her own rulers, however, had
definitely determined what her fate should be when the authorities in
England should once more be free to act. In a little more than that
period, she was to find herself, without a charter and without a friend,
defenseless before the last of the Stuarts; and it was only the final
revolt of the people of England against that dynasty which was to save
her from the full effects of the policy of her theocracy, and to secure
to all her citizens the same measure of political equality that was
enjoyed by their neighbors.
CHAPTER XIV
THE INEVITABLE CONFLICT
During the quarter of a century preceding 1675, the growth of the New
England colonies, both in numbers and resources, had been marked. Their
refusal, on the one hand, to observe such of the imperial laws as might
in any way hamper their commerce, and, on the other, the opportunities
offered by the growth of the Empire, under those laws, had resulted in
an enormous expansion, comparatively, in the colonies' intercolonial and
foreign trade. With no Indian war of any magnitude for a generation, and
with ample areas of free land upon which to expand, the frontier
extended rapidly, and the population doubled. At the opening of the
inter-racial conflict which is the subject of this chapter, the settlers
probably numbered about fifty-two thousand, of whom approximately
thirty-seven thousand were located in the seaboard colonies from Maine
to Plymouth, three thousand in Rhode Island, and twelve thousand in
Connecticut.[834] The numbers of the Indians can be estimated with even
less certainty than those of the whites; but it is probable that the
colonists outnumbered them by at least four to one.[835] The
Narragansetts, who were by far the most numerous, as well as the most
powerful, may have counted five thousand individuals in all.[836]
Footnote 834:
There are no exact figures. The estimate in _Century of Population
Growth_, pp. 4 _ff._, is about 54,000. Dexter, _Estimates of
Population in American Colonies_, gives about the same (pp. 26 _ff._).
Palfrey estimates from 40,000 to 45,000 in 1665 (_History_, vol. III,
pp. 35 _ff._). If we accept the usual military ratio of one military
effective to five persons, a contemporary estimate in 1675 by
[William?] Harris gives 44,000, which would be increased by the fact
that Massachusetts insisted upon carrying a smaller proportion of the
military burden than the other colonies. _Cal. State Pap., Col.,
1675-76_, p. 220. L. K. Mathews's estimate of 120,000, in her
generally accurate _Expansion of New England_ (p. 56), may be taken
from _Cal. State Pap., Col., 1675-76_, p. 362, where that greatly
exaggerated figure is given, but as a query, and is disproved by the
additional statistics of 13,000 families and 16,000 effectives given
in the same statement. Osgood adopts the figure of 80,000 (_American
Colonies_, vol. I, p. 543).
Footnote 835:
Palfrey's suggestion of about equal numbers for the two races seems to
have little foundation. _History_, vol. III, p. 167. On the other
hand, Osgood's estimate of only 10,500 (_American Colonies_, vol. I,
p. 543) seems a little low.
Footnote 836:
Hodge, _Handbook_, vol. II, p. 29.
The geographical relations of the two races had been almost as greatly
altered, in a generation, as had their numerical proportions. At the
time of the Pequot war, in 1637, at least four fifths of the entire
white population formed a compact mass along the eastern shore of the
present state of Massachusetts. The scattered settlements of Maine and
New Hampshire, the handful of people about Narragansett Bay, and the
beginnings of the River Towns in Connecticut, were but isolated outposts
in what was otherwise an unbroken wilderness, peopled only by the
savages. The whites were thus hemmed in on every side except the
ocean.[837] By 1675, the situation in southern New England had been
completely reversed. The settled area, which by that year extended
westward from the sea one third of the way across Massachusetts, was
continued from Cape Cod along the Sound and up the Connecticut River,
and the western Massachusetts towns were scattered up the valley of the
latter as far as Northfield. It was now the Indian who found himself,
not simply far outnumbered, but entirely surrounded, by his white
neighbors. It was only in the northeastern settlements, where the
English population was much sparser, and where the short rivers and
broken uplands offered no attractions to tempt the settlers from the
coast, that the earlier conditions still prevailed, and the savages as
yet had free range.
Footnote 837:
The maps in Mathews's _Expansion of New England_ are of great value in
studying the movement of the frontier.
In the Puritan colonies, the practical identity of church and town, and
the whole social, religious, and political life of the people precluded
any wide dispersal of individual settlers in the wilderness. Even when
individuals wished to go off by themselves, they were, as a rule, not
allowed to do so, and Plymouth was not the only colony to take drastic
measures to discipline such as preferred “liveing lonely and in a
heathenish way from good societie.”[838] The unit of the southern New
England frontier was not the solitary hunter or trapper, not even the
family of the pioneer farmer, but the town. When a bit of the wilderness
was cleared, it was to plant therein, not an isolated cabin, but the
homes of an organized community, fully equipped with a church and town
government, destined, almost at once, to be a new centre of civilization
alien to the savage, permanent, irremovable, expanding. When a French
trader or trapper plunged into the forest, and the green leaves closed
behind him, it was to mingle with the life of the natives, which, in its
main aspects, flowed on unaltered by his presence. When, on the other
hand, Englishmen cleared their fields, built a town and a church, and by
virtue of their title-deeds claimed undivided ownership of their newly
acquired square miles of land, it was as if they had planted a great
rock in the stream of savage life, which must thereafter flow around
this new obstruction. As the English frontier crept ever farther and
farther inland, from the shores of ocean and Sound, and up the valleys
of such streams as the Merrimac, Thames, or Connecticut, and town
succeeded town, it was as if, adding stone to stone, great dykes were
being built, which more and more dammed up the waters of native life. It
was almost inevitable that a point would be reached when these
imprisoned waters would burst forth, and possibly carry away all New
England in their flood.
Footnote 838:
_Plymouth Records_, vol. V, p. 169.
The land-hunger of the whites, however, was insatiable. Almost any
trouble with the natives became a sufficient excuse for an extorted
cession of territory, either immediate or deferred. From the very
beginning, the English had recognized an Indian title to the country, as
distinct from the rights conveyed by the king in his patents. Indeed, in
view of the use to which the settlers wished to put the lands, and the
basis upon which they necessarily lived in relation to the native
occupants, they could not well do otherwise, and peaceful possession was
cheaply secured at the expense of a few coats or hoes. But, as we saw in
an earlier chapter, the Indian theory of ownership was entirely
different from that of the whites; and although the English, for the
most part, observed the legal forms of their own race, the parchments
which the savage signed with his mark were as ethically invalid as a
child's sale of his inheritance for a stick of candy. Not only, in the
beginning, had the natives failed to understand the nature of the
transaction itself, but in their utter ignorance of Europe, and of what
was bound to ensue from the steady stream of emigration thence, they
could not foresee—what was reasonably clear to the colonists—that the
result of their having welcomed the stranger would eventually be their
own annihilation or completely altered status.
Whatever may be thought of the abstract justice of the earlier
purchases, as the whites increased in numbers and comparative power, and
as their first fears of the savages, and the desire to convert them,
gave place to dislike, contempt, spiritual indifference, and
self-confidence, their dealings with them sank to a lower ethical plane.
It took but a few years for the methods of land-acquisition to become
greatly modified. It was no longer considered necessary to treat with
the Indian as an equal, whose just title could be acquired only for a
valuable consideration. The theory was formulated that the native could
be punished for a breach of the Englishman's laws, and that the fine or
damage imposed might take the form of a cession of land. Troubles with
the savages, on a larger scale, resulted in making use of the title by
conquest, by which the larger part of Connecticut was acquired. Later,
in the case of the Narragansetts, as we have already seen, overdue
tribute, of questionable validity, was used by a speculative land
company as a basis for advancing money on mortgage, by means of which it
was hoped to obtain the rich territorial possessions of that entire
tribe. All the colonies, indeed, in order to protect the Indians from
the commoner forms of fraud, and themselves from the dangerous results
of disputes, had made it illegal for individuals to bargain for land;
and the laws requiring the general courts to pass upon all land-dealings
were wise and just, and, undoubtedly, prevented much petty trickery and
mischief. It is needless to point out, however, the subtle temptation
for the colonies to pick a quarrel with the natives, to interfere with
their internal affairs, or to conduct some little military expedition,
when the result was likely to be the acquisition of desirable lands by a
mere show of force.
As the whites encroached more and more upon the Indians, the lands of
the latter gradually came to be looked upon as reservations, upon which
their native owners were allowed to live until a convenient opportunity,
or the growing needs of the settlers, might bring about a farther
advance. Moreover, as the Indian lands dwindled in extent, and the
whites rapidly increased numerically, in proportion to the natives, the
settlers adopted an attitude of superiority and authority over the
native tribes. This really amounted to establishing a protectorate over
them, and relegated them to the rank of dependent peoples shorn of all
sovereign power. It was a natural evolution in the relations between the
two races, but was no more acceptable to the Indians for that reason.
Nor were the Puritans, who were by nature harsh and overbearing, and who
failed to display even the ordinary good manners of the time in their
dealings with the Dutch, likely to exhibit any great amount of tact or
courtesy in those which they had with the despised heathen and “children
of the devil.” Personal pride and a strict observance of etiquette were
marked characteristics of the savages, and chiefs and sachems could not
fail to be stung to the quick when they were summoned, with more and
more frequency, and less and less courtesy, to travel long distances and
answer to complaints before the courts of Plymouth or Massachusetts,
with but little regard for their dignity or standing among their own
people.
Not seldom, moreover, they knew that such a demand was but the prelude
to extending English authority, and sending them home shorn of
possessions and respect. To cite, as an example, a case somewhat closely
connected with the events of this chapter, in 1671, as a sequel to a
rumored rising of the Indians in Plymouth Colony, the Squaw Sachem
Awashunks was summoned to appear; and having done so voluntarily, she
was required to submit “the disposall of her lands to the authoritie” of
the colony, and was forced to engage herself to pay £50, to recompense
the English for their trouble in the matter. As it was impossible that
she could pay any such sum, the eventual “disposall” of her lands would
not be difficult to foresee.[839] Land, as Roger Williams wrote, was
becoming “one of the gods of New England,” and judicial punishments were
coming curiously often to involve forced concessions regarding coveted
bits of territory. Subtly, and perhaps unconsciously, but no less
surely, the land-hunger of the whites was poisoning the wells of
justice.
Footnote 839:
_Plymouth Records_, vol. V, p. 75.
As a result of the relations, territorial and political, which were
developing between the races, and as a natural corollary of the
protectorate theory, the English were also gradually enacting, on the
one hand, a body of law applicable among themselves to the Indian only,
and, on the other, forcing the “protected” Indians to observe English
law, even when living apart from the settlers. Such regulations as
Connecticut passed for the Pequots on their reservation in the spring of
1675 were evidence of what all the protected Indians might expect in
time. Any native, for example, heathen or Christian, who profaned the
Sabbath day by hunting, fishing, carrying firewood, or other
misdemeanors, was to be fined or whipped; while all were ordered to
“heare the word of God preached by Mr. Fitch, or any other minister sent
amongst them,” subject to four shillings fine or corporal
punishment.[840] A most unjust law, in view of the well-understood
inability of the Indian to withstand the temptation of strong waters,
and the willingness of the colonists, in spite of legal prohibition, to
sell them to him, was that which provided that any native found drunk
should have to labor twelve days for whoever accused him and proved the
case, one half of the proceeds of his labor to go to the accuser, and
one half to the county treasury. It was only necessary, therefore,
secretly to induce a savage to take one or two drinks, in order to
secure six days' forced labor from him _gratis_.[841] We need not credit
the preposterous contemporary accusation that the Massachusetts
government, under a similar law, connived at making Indians drunk, so as
to hasten the work on Castle Island, in order to realize the ample
possibilities for evil in such a statute.[842]
Footnote 840:
_Conn. Col. Records_, vol. II, pp. 575 _f._
Footnote 841:
_Ibid._, p. 257.
Footnote 842:
_Cal. State Pap., Col., 1675-76_, p. 307. This document, apparently by
Capt. Wyborne, was used in the Mason-Gorges case against
Massachusetts.
The close proximity in which the whites and natives dwelt in many places
was the source of endless friction and petty annoyance, particularly to
the Indians. The live-stock of the settlers was forever being allowed to
stray into the cultivated lands of the savages; and at the time of the
troubles in 1671, the colony of Plymouth had to appoint committees in no
less than eleven different towns, “to view the Damage done to the
Indians by the Horses and Hoggs of the English.”[843] The question of
firearms was the subject of frequent legislation by the colonial courts,
and of friction with the natives, in the altered condition of whose life
they had become practically essential as a means of procuring food.[844]
Notwithstanding this fact, and the obvious one that the guns, having
been paid for by the Indians with their own money, were their property,
the English, frequently, when alarmed by rumors of hostility, required
that the savages deliver all their arms into the hands of the
authorities, considering as enemies those who refused.[845] Not only was
this a hardship and a humiliation, but, on a number of occasions, the
English refused to return the weapons, simply confiscating them. In
1671, for example, in Plymouth, after Philip had been required to
deposit the guns of his people with the Court, that body determined that
they were “justly forfeit,” and coolly divided them among the towns of
the colony.[846] At one stroke, not only were the natives deprived of
their means of livelihood and defense, but the weapons, which they had
honestly bought, were thus, by legalized robbery, turned against
themselves. No individual with the instinct of self-respect and
self-preservation could fail to see that his eventual choice would lie
between resistance and virtual slavery.
Footnote 843:
_Plymouth Records_, vol. V, p. 62.
Footnote 844:
_Cf._ _Conn. Col. Records_, vol. I, pp. 74, 79, 163, 263;
_Massachusetts Records_, vols. IV, pt. ii, p. 564, and V, pp. 44, 304;
_Plymouth Records_, vol. V, p. 64.
Footnote 845:
_E.g._, _Conn. Col. Records_, vol. I, p. 240.
Footnote 846:
_Plymouth Records_, vol. V, p. 63.
The missionary efforts of the English differed from those of the French
precisely as did their exploitation of the land. In French America, the
religious counterpart of the lonely trapper or trader was the Jesuit
priest, who, cross in hand, and frequently without a companion,
penetrated to the far depths of the forest, to carry his message to the
heathen wherever found. In New England, however, as it was the town and
not the trader that pushed the frontier forward, so the lonely
missionary was replaced by the organizer of communities, and the savages
on the fringe of civilization were gathered into villages within the
bounds of white settlement, there to have the gospel preached to them,
and to be joined in a covenanted church. Such work was practically
negligible in Rhode Island and Connecticut, but, by the outbreak of
Philip's War, had made considerable progress in Massachusetts and
Plymouth. In the latter two colonies, the labors of the Reverend John
Eliot, who had translated the Bible into the Indian tongue, of Thomas
Mayhew, Richard Bourne, and others,—paid for almost wholly with funds
raised in England,—had resulted in the gathering of perhaps four
thousand converts.[847] A considerable number of these “Praying
Indians,” as they were called, were scattered in villages on Martha's
Vineyard and Nantucket, and in some twenty localities in Plymouth, and
about eleven hundred were located in Massachusetts. Of the latter, the
earlier and most dependable ones dwelt in the seven towns of Chelmsford,
Littleton, Natick, Marlborough, Hopkinton, Grafton, and Stoughton, which
were located at intervals of a dozen miles or so along the frontier of
the eastern settlements, and which might have been used as a possible
line of defense against any hostile movement from the unoccupied central
portion of the colony, which lay between them and the towns of the
Connecticut River.[848] In a large proportion of cases, the conversion
seems to have been genuine, and the Indians, more particularly in the
seven towns named, to have become sincere friends of the English,
although the more recent converts in the Nipmuck country soon went over
to the enemy.
Footnote 847:
D. Gookin, “Historical Collections of the Indians of New England,”
_Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll._, Series I, vol. I, pp. 195 _ff._ For the work
of these men, which deserves all praise, _vide_ the tracts reprinted
in _Ibid._, Series III, vol. IV.
Footnote 848:
D. Gookin, “Christian Indians,” in _Archeologia Americana_, vol. II,
p. 435.
To the bulk of the savages, however, the humdrum existence led by their
praying brethren in the little reservations allotted to them by the
English, and their position of humble dependence upon the white lords of
the soil, could hardly make a serious appeal. The past was too recent,
and its contrast with the present was too vivid. It was becoming clear
to the dullest witted that the future could hold little else, however,
unless the power of the whites could be broken once and for all.
Massasoit, the aged Sachem of the Wampanoags, who had been a consistent
friend to the settlers since 1620, died in the winter of 1660-61, and
his son Alexander, who succeeded him, also died a few months later. In
fact, his death is said to have been due, in part, to his anger and
chagrin at having been forcibly seized by the authorities of Plymouth
when called upon to make his appearance before them.[849] The change of
relations between the whites and Indians was well exemplified by the
difference between the formal and dignified embassy sent from Plymouth
in 1620, to visit Massasoit and to negotiate a treaty with him, and the
“eight or ten stout men,” under Major Winslow, who surprised Alexander
in his hunting-lodge, seized his arms, and commanded him to travel to
that same Plymouth, to appear before the governor.
Footnote 849:
W. Hubbard, _History of the Indian Wars in New England_ (ed. S. G.
Drake, 1865), vol. I, p. 50. A more favorable account of the Alexander
incident is given in a letter from John Cotton to Increase Mather, in
1677. _Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll._, Series IV, vol. VIII, pp. 233 _f._
Philip had not long succeeded his brother Alexander as sachem, when he,
in turn, was curtly summoned to appear before the Court, to clear
himself of rumored disloyalty. Although nothing whatever was proved, and
Philip offered to leave another of his brothers as hostage, he was
forced to sign a treaty ratifying all former ones, acknowledge himself
an English subject, and agree not to alienate any of his lands without
the consent of the Court.[850] Five years later, on renewed rumors of
his disloyalty, his arms were taken away, and he was again forced to
appear before the magistrates. Although once more no evidence was
produced against him, and his arms were returned, he was nevertheless
required to give his note for £40 as part of the charge for the
expedition which had been sent after him.[851] In 1671, for wholly
inadequate causes, he was forced, not to make a new treaty, but, without
option, to sign “several propositions,” by one of which he had to agree
to pay a fine of “one hundred pounds in such things as I have,”
although, as he had no such sum, he asked for three years in which to
pay it. He was also required to acknowledge himself in subjection, not
merely to the English Crown, but to the little colony of Plymouth; to
pay an annual tribute; to sell land only subject to the colony's
approval; and, with exceeding unfairness, to agree in advance to submit,
in case of any dispute between the colony and himself, to the verdict of
the governor as arbitrator.[852] It was on this occasion, as already
noted, that all the guns that his people had delivered to the English
were confiscated.
Footnote 850:
_Plymouth Records_, vol. IV, pp. 25 _f._
Footnote 851:
_Ibid._, pp. 165 _f._
Footnote 852:
_Ibid._, vol. V, p. 79. The accusations against him are on p. 78.
These were only that he had refused to deliver some of his guns; that,
on occasion, he had refused to journey to Plymouth when sent for; that
he harbored enemy Indians; that he had misrepresented Plymouth to
Massachusetts; and that he had been uncivil.
This treatment, accorded to the son of that sachem to whom the now
grasping colony had, in its infancy, owed its very life, and who had
been its friend for over forty years, could not fail to goad him into
rebellion, if, indeed, he had not already considered it. Within four
years from the time when the son of Massasoit affixed his scrawling mark
to the humiliating and confiscatory document, the storm broke which was
to drench New England in a sea of blood.
In the absence of any written records of the Indians, from which the
story of those four years or so of preparation upon their part might be
ascertained, the nature and scope of Philip's plans must remain wholly a
matter of inference from the subsequent events. That he nursed his
revenge, and carried on negotiations with other tribes for a
simultaneous rising against the whites over a considerable territory,
would seem to be well established. On the other hand, the time was more
or less ripe for the inevitable conflict to occur throughout all the
colonies. Once started, the example of a native rising would prove
contagious; and there is little evidence to prove that the widespread
movements along the seaboard were connected by threads that centred in
the hut of the Wampanoag. His tribe itself was weak and inconspicuous,
and in Philip's apparent lack of personal bravery and some of the other
qualities most admired in a savage leader, there is nothing to
indicate—what, indeed, events tend to disprove—that he was personally
popular among the natives. Nor, even if we grant that he was surprised
into hostilities in that spring of 1675, before all his plans had
matured, is there any evidence, in his later conduct of the campaign, of
that great ability for organization which has sometimes been attributed
to him. There seems to be no doubt, however, that at that time he was
engaged in preparing for a general rising, and that he had the sympathy
of some of the other New England tribes.
Meanwhile, the English seem to have been singularly oblivious to the
realities of the situation. They claimed, and undoubtedly felt, that
they had treated the natives with justice. In the beginning, they had
naturally failed to understand the Indian character, government, and
theory of property. As, on the one hand, they came to know these better,
on the other, the contempt they developed for the heathen and the
savage, who, incidentally, was in possession of lands coveted by the
Saints of God, tended to lessen their belief in his abstract rights.
Economically, they had outgrown their early dependence upon the native;
and their increasing sense of safety, due to the rapidly developing
disparity in numbers, tended to make them callous to the feelings of the
“great naked dirty beast,” as Colonel Church described Philip, and they
ceased to fear the power of the savage without coming to respect the
rights of the man.[853] They failed to realize the broader aspects of
the struggle, and even the practical fact that they were driving a still
powerful race of savages into a corner, where they were not likely to
stand at bay without making, at some time, a supreme effort to escape.
Footnote 853:
_Cf._ Winslow's letter of justification in Hubbard, _Indian Wars_,
vol. I, pp. 56 _f._, and “Narrative of the Beginning of the War,” in
_Acts United Colonies_, vol. II, pp. 362 _f._
When the Indians finally did strike back, the English not only were
wholly unprepared but do not seem to have understood the results of
their own acts. Instead of regarding the approaching conflict as an
inevitable consequence of the relations between the two races, and as
having been, more immediately, brought about by themselves, they looked
upon it as sent from God; and in a hasty self-examination as to why the
Deity should have so afflicted them, the Massachusetts General Court
decided that He was then engaged in burning towns and murdering women
and children along the frontier, because Massachusetts had become
somewhat lax in persecuting the Quakers, and because her men had begun
to wear periwigs and their women to indulge in “cutting, curling and
immodest laying out theire haire.”[854]
Footnote 854:
_Massachusetts Records_, vol. V, pp. 59 _ff._
The genius of New England has never been military. Her people, in a
cause in which they believe, can fight doggedly and well, but she has
never given to the nation a great soldier, either as leader or
organizer, and King Philip's War presented no exception. From its
nature, it was less a war than a series of raids by the savages and
retaliatory expeditions by the English; but it was the only sort of war
which the colonies could have expected, or for which they ought to have
been prepared. There was, however, practically no intercolonial
organization. The United Colonies, the efficiency of which as a
war-machine had early been damaged by Massachusetts, had received
another blow by the loss of a member when New Haven was absorbed by
Connecticut. Although Plymouth's suggestion, at that time, to dissolve
the Confederacy entirely, had not been approved, the bond had become
looser than ever, and under the altered articles, the representatives of
the three remaining members were to meet only triennially.[855]
Footnote 855:
_Acts United Colonies_, vol. II, pp. 324, 319, 340 _ff._
In spite of the invaluable material that the colonies possessed in the
friendly Indians, none of them had been employed as spies among the
enemy, of whose plans preceding the war the colonists seem to have had
no information other than vague rumors. In spite of their experience,
moreover, the settlers appear, in part, to have been curiously ignorant
of Indian warfare. Even in the matter of weapons, they made the mistake,
at first, of equipping men with the wholly useless pike; and in the
earliest expeditions, the English carried the cumbrous old matchlock
guns, which were much inferior to the newer flintlocks used by the
savages.[856] The commissariat frequently broke down, and in a number of
cases important expeditions had to be abandoned because of failure of
supplies. The regulation, necessary on account of the jealousy of the
several colonies, that, in joint operations, the ranking officer of the
colony in which the operations happened to be conducted at the moment
should be the commander-in-chief of the whole, naturally made friction
and tended to confusion.[857] From the same spirit of jealousy, there
also arose disputes, sometimes almost amounting to mutiny, between the
troops of one colony and those of another, which were further fostered
by the lack of unity in plans, and inadequate communication.[858]
Insubordination was not always limited to the rank and file, and in the
case of Colonel Moseley,—who had married a niece of Governor Leverett of
Massachusetts,—rose to such a point, against both his superior officers
and the state, as should have brought him to a court-martial.[859] As
the war progressed, the difficulty of raising troops became great, both
from lack of men in some places and from their disinclination to serve.
In Plymouth, it was ordered that boys under the military age of sixteen
should be used for guard-duty; while any man pressed for service who
refused to obey should be fined five pounds, or made to run the
gauntlet, or both.[860] Connecticut had to offer her troops, officers as
well as men, the plunder of the Indians, as to both their goods and
their persons, in addition to the regular pay, and to forbid any male
resident between the ages of fourteen and seventy to emigrate from the
colony.[861] Massachusetts, “taking into consideration the great
disappointment” that soldiers pressed for duty refused to serve,
provided that those who continued refractory should be punished with
death.[862] On the other hand, the drab coloring of the war, uninspiring
as the conflict was in many of its aspects, was relieved over and over
by exhibitions of a fine courage on the part of individual soldiers, and
of a cool daring in the face of unspeakable horrors, shown by women as
well as men.
Footnote 856:
_Cf._ _Massachusetts Records_, vol. V, p. 47; S. G. Drake, _Old Indian
Chronicle_ (Boston, 1836), p. 8; G. M. Bodge, _Soldiers in King
Philip's War_ (Leominster, 1896), pp. 45 _ff._
Footnote 857:
_Acts United Colonies_, vol. II, p. 359.
Footnote 858:
_Cf._ Bodge, _Soldiers_, pp. 150 _f._
Footnote 859:
Mather, _Philip's War_, p. 240 _n._; Gookin, _Praying Indians_, pp.
495 _f._; Bodge, _Soldiers_, p. 76. For the mutiny of a Plymouth
officer and his men, _cf._ _Plymouth Records_, vol. V, pp. 189 _f._
There were other cases.
Footnote 860:
_Plymouth Records_, vol. V, pp. 193, 198.
Footnote 861:
_Conn. Col. Records_, vol. II, pp. 418, 272.
Footnote 862:
_Massachusetts Records_, vol. V, p. 78.
The character of the war would, in any case, probably have been mainly a
series of raids; but the fact that Philip had apparently to enter upon
hostilities before his preparations were complete, and the lack of unity
and organized effective action among the colonies, made the course of
the contest even more desultory than it might otherwise have been. We
cannot here give more than an outline of the chief events of the
struggle, which was more important in its results than in its
conduct.[863]
Footnote 863:
The general reader may consult Ellis and Morris, _King Philip's War_;
New York, 1906. The volume is more trustworthy than the unfortunate
slip in its opening sentence might seem to indicate.
In the latter part of 1674, John Sassamon, a Christian Indian,
discovered a plot among the natives of Namasket, and immediately
informed the authorities of Plymouth, stating that he would be in danger
of his life if Philip should learn of his disclosures.[864] His fears
were fulfilled, and in January, 1675, he was murdered, apparently by
Philip's orders, the three Indians implicated in his death being seized,
tried, and executed by the English in the following spring.[865] The
Squaw-Sachem Weetamoo, who seems to have been opposed to the rising,
although she was the sister-in-law of Philip, also warned the English of
what was planned; but they do not seem to have taken any measures for
defense, or to have done anything at all beyond remonstrating with
Philip.[866] He had already committed himself too far, however, to have
drawn back, even if he would; and, in spite of the premature discovery
of the design, the younger warriors from neighboring tribes began to
come in and urge the immediate beginning of hostilities.
Footnote 864:
Hubbard, _Indian Wars_, vol. I, p. 61.
Footnote 865:
_Plymouth Records_, vol. V, p. 167.
Footnote 866:
_Acts United Colonies_, vol. II, p. 363.
On June 24, at Swansea, after having provoked a settler to draw the
first blood, the savages fell upon the whites, and killed eight or nine.
Two more, who had been dispatched to get a surgeon, were waylaid and
slain, and their bodies found by an embassy then on its way from the
government of Plymouth to Philip. In the six months since the English
had been told of the plot, they had been strangely inactive. Two days
after the murders at Swansea, however, five companies were mustered,
partly in Plymouth and partly in Boston, and were on the march.[867] A
raid on the Indians by these united forces, on the 30th, so frightened
the savages, that Philip and his followers fled from Mount Hope and took
refuge in a swamp at Pocasset, although the intelligence service of the
English, through their failure to use native scouts, was so imperfect
that they were unaware of the move of the enemy, and did not follow up
the pursuit. Pocasset was in the territory of Weetamoo, and the English,
by driving Philip into her jurisdiction, and failing to follow him,
practically forced her to join with him and his warriors.
Footnote 867:
Hubbard, _Indian Wars_, vol. I, pp. 66 _ff._
Although, as yet, in spite of their ancient wrongs, the Narragansetts
had shown no hostility, nevertheless, at the instant when the attack on
Philip should have been followed up, the Massachusetts troops received
orders to pass into the Narragansett country, and to “make peace with a
sword in their hand.”[868] Canonicus, the sachem, could not be found;
but the Massachusetts agents, joined by those from Connecticut,
negotiated a treaty with a few unimportant individuals, who were forced
to obligate the tribe to join the English in making aggressive war on
Philip, and to confirm all former land-grants.[869] The English must
have realized, not only that such a treaty was not binding, but that, so
far from gaining the most powerful of the New England tribes as allies,
it would have just the opposite effect. On the other hand, had the
Massachusetts troops remained with those of Plymouth, and pursued and
captured Philip, the war might possibly have been ended at once, and the
Narragansetts not have entered it at all.
Footnote 868:
Hubbard, _Indian Wars_, vol. I, p. 75.
Footnote 869:
The text of the treaty is in Hubbard, vol. I, pp. 76 _ff._
Unless we assume the military incapacity of the Massachusetts Court, we
can hardly avoid the suggestion that that colony, and perhaps
Connecticut also, saw an opportunity to strengthen their claims to the
rich lands possessed by the natives whom they were forcing into
opposition, and desired, by being first on the spot and negotiating the
farcical treaty, to establish a basis for future title. That the mind of
Boston was not bent solely upon the defense of the frontier, or the
devilish effects of periwigs, is suggested by a letter from that godly
town on July 6, which announced that “the land already gained is worth
£10,000.”[870] And this in the first fortnight! The good dames—and their
spouses—may be pardoned if they were tempted toward heresy regarding the
fatal results of curling-tongs and switches.
Footnote 870:
_Cal. State Pap., Col., 1675-76_, p. 253.
The treaty negotiated, most of the Massachusetts troops were immediately
ordered back to Boston, only about one hundred, under command of Captain
Henchman, being left with those of Plymouth to guard the swamp in which
Philip had taken refuge. After a skirmish on the 18th, these decided
that it was “ill fighting with a wild beast in his own den,” and
resolved to starve Philip out. That wily savage, however, gave his
cautious watchers the slip, and escaped to central Massachusetts, with
his followers. Again owing to inadequate scouting, it was only after
some days that the English found that they were guarding an empty trap,
and then their pursuit had been too long delayed to be successful.[871]
Footnote 871:
Hubbard, _Indian Wars_, vol. I, pp. 88 _ff._; B. Church, _History of
King Philip's War_ (ed. H. M. Dexter, Boston, 1865), pp. 25 _ff._
Philip's presence decided the Massachusetts Indians, with whom the
colonial authorities were then negotiating. Captains Wheeler and
Hutchinson, with a small party of whites and three Christian Indians,
who were sent to treat with the Nipmucks, were treacherously attacked
near the place the savages had appointed for a parley, and about one
third of the colonists were slain. The survivors fled to Brookfield,
gaining that place in safety only with the help of the Christian
Indians, who had warned them of the treachery in advance, without
avail.[872] The town was attacked by the natives almost before the
whites could reach it, all the buildings being burned except the one in
which the inhabitants had taken refuge. After the inmates, for three
days, had warded off the efforts of several hundred savages to set fire
to the house which was their only protection, they were rescued by Major
Willard and a troop from Lancaster, although the town had to be
abandoned.[873]
Footnote 872:
Bodge, _Soldiers_, pp. 107 _ff._; Gookin, _Christian Indians_, pp. 447
_f._; Hubbard, _Indian Wars_, vol. I, p. 99. The latter fails to state
that the rescuers were natives. Wheeler, in his report, also ignored
it, although he subsequently certified to the Indians' good conduct.
Footnote 873:
Mather, _Philip's War_, p. 68; Hubbard, _Indian Wars_, vol. I, pp. 100
_ff._
The Springfield Indians now joined the enemy, and Connecticut and
Massachusetts troops were concentrated at Hadley, under command of Major
Pynchon. On the first of September, Deerfield was attacked for the first
time, and most of the houses burned.[874] The following day the savages
fell upon Northfield, killed eight persons, and destroyed the
buildings.[875] A relief party, under Captain Beers, which, unaware of
the disaster, was bringing up supplies, was ambushed, and twenty men out
of the thirty were killed after a desperate fight, the remainder taking
refuge at Hadley, as did also the inhabitants of Northfield, who now
abandoned their town.[876]
Footnote 874:
Mather, _Philip's War_, pp. 72 _ff._; Hubbard, _Indian Wars_, vol. I,
p. 110. For the traditional attack on Hadley, and the story of the
regicide Judge Goffe, _vide_ S. Judd, _History of Hadley_ (1905), pp.
138 _ff._, and G. Sheldon, _History of Deerfield_ (1895), vol. I, pp.
93 _f._
Footnote 875:
Bodge, _Soldiers_, p. 130; Hubbard, _Indian Wars_, vol. II, p. 44.
Footnote 876:
Hubbard, _Indian Wars_, vol. I, p. 110; Mather, _Philip's War_, p. 79;
Bodge, _Soldiers_, p. 131.
Heretofore, in the Massachusetts operations, Major Treat had been in
command of the Connecticut forces, and Major Pynchon of those from the
Bay Colony, Treat's instructions having been to advise with Pynchon but
to act with him only when convinced of the wisdom of a move.[877]
Massachusetts now decided to abandon the field, and merely to garrison
the towns; but this supine policy, which could not have been permanent,
and was a virtual admission of defeat, did not satisfy Connecticut. As a
result of negotiations, the United Colonies decided to raise the total
number of troops to one thousand, and to put Pynchon in supreme command
in the upper Connecticut Valley. The Commissioners confessed that they
did not know how many troops were already in the field, or anything of
the strength of the enemy.[878] This lack of information was
characteristic both in the major conduct of the war and in minor
operations.
Footnote 877:
_Conn. Col. Records_, vol. II, p. 358.
Footnote 878:
_Ibid._, pp. 364, 367. Massachusetts was to supply 527, Plymouth, 158,
Connecticut, 315. The figures were based upon the new Articles of
Confederation, which were unduly favorable to Massachusetts. Based
upon population, they would probably have been about 640, 100, and
260, respectively.
Only a few days after these arrangements were made, Deerfield had been
attacked again, and Captain Lathrop, with about sixty men, “the very
flower of the county of Essex,” was detailed to convoy some provisions
accumulated there into Hadley. Although these troops were operating in a
country filled with hostile savages, and the line of march lay in part
through a dense forest, where they might easily be ambushed, the company
had no scouts ahead, and many of the soldiers had stowed their arms in
the carts, while they themselves gathered grapes by the roadside.
Lathrop was familiar with the road and its dangerous places; but it was
at one of these, the spot where the trail crossed the little stream ever
since known as Bloody Brook, that the troop encountered the fatal result
of their criminal folly. As they were crossing the ford, with their
heavy wagons lumbering in the mud, the Indian war-whoop rang out on all
sides, and the soldiers fell under the bullets of their unseen foe. The
massacre was virtually complete. Hardly a man escaped, and not one would
have done so, had not Colonel Moseley with another small troop, heard
the shooting and hurried to the rescue. He, in turn, was being forced
back, and was facing annihilation, when Major Treat, having likewise
heard firing, hastened up with some Connecticut troops and friendly
Indians, and saved the day.[879] The survivors, however, who fell back
upon Deerfield, were obliged to evacuate the town a few days later, it
thus being the third surrendered to the enemy.
Footnote 879:
Mather, _Philip's War_, pp. 85 _f._; Bodge, _Soldiers_, pp. 67, 135
_f._; Sheldon, _Deerfield_, vol. I, pp. 100 _ff._; Hubbard, _Indian
Wars_, vol. I, pp. 113 _ff._
On September 26, a slight attack was made upon Springfield, followed by
demonstrations against Hadley. Some troops having been hurried thither
from Springfield, the Indians, successful in their ruse, if that had
been their plan, returned and attacked that town in force, destroying it
on October 5.[880] Major Appleton now replaced Pynchon as commander; but
Treat having retired with part of his troops to Connecticut, in view of
the danger threatening Hartford, his lieutenant refused to obey
Appleton, as he considered Treat to be his immediate superior. The
matter became a subject of dispute between the colonies, but, the danger
to Connecticut having passed, Treat returned, and Connecticut troops
continued to garrison the Massachusetts towns throughout the
winter.[881]
Footnote 880:
Hubbard, _Indian Wars_, vol. I, p. 122; Mather, _Philip's War_, p. 97.
Footnote 881:
_Conn. Col. Records_, vol. II, pp. 370, 372 _ff._, 380 _ff._
Connecticut from the start had adopted the policy of utilizing to the
full the services of the friendly Indians, which Massachusetts, for the
most part had refused, with disastrous consequences. Not only had she
failed to make use of them as scouts and troops, but by removing the
Praying Indians from the line of towns in which they had been settled,
and placing them in a concentration camp on Deer Island, she had
weakened her whole line of defense.[882] But, unfortunately, it was not
a question of merely failing to utilize valuable resources. Her
treatment of her civilized natives, individually and collectively, must
be considered as cruel and inhumane, although the ministers and the
magistrates seem, on the whole, to have endeavored to restrain the
lawless persecution of the mob, and the savagery of their more brutal
leaders, such as Moseley. Innocent Indians were insulted, and plundered
of their possessions, and, in some cases, their women and children were
murdered in cold blood. Yet juries refused to convict the offenders, and
the General Court frequently yielded to the clamor, until letters from
England, and the discovery of a hideous plot by the whites to massacre
all the converts gathered on Deer Island, awoke them to some sense of
their duty. The blind fury against the Praying Indians was by no means
confined to the rabble. Moseley, whose refusal to use their services in
the war had cost many English lives, treated them at Marlborough and
Nashobeh with the most wanton brutality, although the execution of a
squaw, taken prisoner on his expedition near Hatfield, is, we hope,
unique in American military history. The laconic note of her fate merely
reads that she was “ordered to be torn in peeces by Doggs, and she was
soe dealt withal.”[883] It recalls, however, the earlier advice of
Massachusetts, that the Indians be hunted down with mastiffs.[884]
Although he was censured for his various acts of inhumanity and
insubordination, no action was taken against Moseley by the authorities,
who thus share his guilt; and so high did the feeling run that it became
dangerous, even in Boston, for such men as Eliot and Gookin to speak a
word in defense of the persecuted Christian natives.
Footnote 882:
_Massachusetts Records_, vol. V, pp. 46, 55, 57, 64, 84.
Footnote 883:
Mather, _Philip's War_, p. 101 _n._; Bodge, _Soldiers_, p. 69; Gookin,
_Christian Indians_, pp. 455 _ff._, 500 _ff._
Footnote 884:
_Acts United Colonies_, vol. II, p. 168.
In the early winter, it seemed as if the enemy had been successful
everywhere. Philip, who apparently had not been present in any of the
fights, had gone into winter quarters near Albany,[885] but it is
probable that the war had long since passed out of his control; and
there is nothing to indicate any concerted plan governing the actions of
the various tribes now, or soon to be, on the war-path. By far the most
powerful of those surviving were the Narragansetts; and their Sachem
Canonchet, the son of Miantonomo, both from his position and his
ability, was probably a more important factor than Philip; although, as
yet, in spite of the ancient wrong done him in the judicial murder of
his father, and the recent act of the English in forcing the treaty of
July 15 upon some of his people, the sachem had committed no overt act
against the settlers. A number of hostile Indians, however, had fled to
his country for refuge; and in October, either from a deliberate purpose
to provoke him into active hostility, or in the vain hope that he would
be forced into an alliance with them by threats, the Massachusetts
authorities required him to sign a treaty ratifying the one of July 15,
and agreeing to give up all refugees to the English.[886] It is doubtful
whether the sentiment of his people would have permitted this surrender;
but, in any case, little opportunity was given to test it, and on
November 2, only two weeks after having forced Canonchet to sign a
humiliating peace, the English abruptly declared war.[887] Old Uncas,
who had hated the Narragansetts for a lifetime, had long been scheming
to bring about the conflict, and the land possessed by Canonchet and the
refugee Awashonks was a most potent argument. A journal-letter from a
citizen of Boston, dated only a few days after the treaty with the
Narragansett, complains of his not having delivered up the squaw-sachem,
but that there was prospect of force being used, and that, if she could
be captured, “her Lands will more than pay all the charge we have been
at in this unhappy War.”[888] About a week after the date of this
letter, the Commissioners of the United Colonies, at the same meeting at
which war was declared, arranged for a levy of a thousand more troops,
and an immediate expedition was planned against the Narragansetts, under
command of Governor Winslow of Plymouth.[889] The Massachusetts Council,
with an eye to the long-coveted country, proclaimed that, if her
soldiers “played the man,” and drove the Narragansetts out of it, the
army should receive allotments of the land in addition to their
pay.[890]
Footnote 885:
_Conn. Col. Records_, vol. II, pp. 397, 407.
Footnote 886:
_Acts United Colonies_, vol. II, p. 360.
Footnote 887:
_Ibid._, p. 357.
Footnote 888:
_Conn. Col. Records_, vol. II, p. 236; _Old Indian Chronicle_, p. 36.
The various units of the new force, after sundry isolated skirmishes
with the enemy, finally united at Pettisquamscott, late in the afternoon
of December 18, and lay in the open that night in a severe snowstorm.
The Indians, between three and four thousand in number, had taken refuge
in a fortified position, on an island of four or five acres, in the
middle of a large swamp, about sixteen miles from the English camp.
Before daybreak, on the morning of the 19th, the army began its march,
reaching the swamp about one in the afternoon. Some of the enemy were
encountered upon its edge, but immediately fled, pursued, without order,
by the English, straight to the entrance of the native fort. For three
hours the fighting was desperate, and it was only after darkness began
to fall that the colonists succeeded in capturing the Indians'
blockhouse and other works. Then came the same order which had been
issued in the Pequot swamp fight thirty years earlier, and the torch was
applied to the four hundred wigwams and accumulated stores of the
savages. It is impossible to tell how many of the warriors fell in the
fight, or how many of the old people, women, and children were roasted
alive in the flames; but the contemporary estimates run from four
hundred to a thousand or more. The English loss was about seventy killed
and a hundred and fifty wounded.[891]
Footnote 889:
_Acts United Colonies_, vol. II, p. 357; _Conn. Col. Records_, vol.
II, p. 384; _Massachusetts Records_, vol. V, p. 69; _Plymouth
Records_, vol. V, pp. 182 _f._
Footnote 890:
Bodge, _Soldiers_, p. 180.
Footnote 891:
_Ibid._, pp. 190 _f._ _Cf._ _Conn. Col. Records_, vol. II, p. 398.
Hubbard, _Indian Wars_, vol. I, pp. 144 _ff._; Mather, _Philip's War_,
p. 108; Church, _King Philip's War_, pp. 53 _ff._ _A Continuation of
the State of New England_ (London, 1676), estimates the English losses
as, killed and wounded, 207, and 600 Indians killed.
Although the Narragansetts had received a terrible blow, they had not
been so nearly annihilated as had the Pequots in the preceding
generation; and the English, in view of their own actions, could now
look for nothing less than a war to the death, waged with a ferocity
equal at least to their own. An immediate levy of a thousand additional
men was arranged for, divided among the colonies, and a new expedition
was sent into the Nipmuck country, where the Narragansetts had joined
some of Philip's forces.[892] The commissariat broke down, and the short
campaign, known as “the hungry march,” accomplished nothing. On February
10, the savages fell upon Lancaster and nearly destroyed the town.
Within the next few weeks, attacks were made upon such widely separated
points as Medfield, Northampton, Hatfield, Providence, Groton,
Longmeadow, and Marlborough.
Footnote 892:
_Plymouth Records_, vol. V, p. 184; _Conn. Col. Records_, vol. II, p.
391.
The Indians, however, had suffered severely during the winter from want
of food, and, as spring came on, Canonchet realized that crops must be
raised during the summer if the war were to be maintained. He proposed
that the conquered lands in the Connecticut Valley be planted, and he
himself, with a small party, volunteered to go back to Seakonk, near
Mount Hope, to procure seed-corn. The venture cost him his life, for he
was taken captive by a party of Connecticut men and Indians operating in
the Narragansett country, and was immediately condemned to death. When
told of the sentence, the savage, who possessed to the full the courage
lacked by Philip, replied that “he liked it well that he should die
before his heart was soft, or had spoken anything unworthy of
himself.”[893]
Footnote 893:
Hubbard, _Indian Wars_, vol. II, p. 60.
[Illustration:
Warrant signed by Governor Winslow of Plymouth for Sale of Indian
Captives as Slaves
Original in Massachusetts Historical Society
]
In spite of further attacks by the Indians, one as near Boston as
Sudbury, the tide now turned in favor of the English throughout southern
New England. A heavy blow was struck at the Upper Falls of the
Connecticut, where a great company of natives had gathered to fish, and
where Captain Turner inflicted a severe defeat upon them, in spite of
his own heavy losses. The privations of the winter, the prospect of
semi-starvation to come, the loss of Canonchet, and the breakdown of
Philip as a leader, rapidly sapped the morale of the natives, who became
disorganized and demoralized. Detachments of English hunted down and
slaughtered or captured the scattered bands of savages. Philip, who had
returned to his old home near Mount Hope, narrowly escaped being taken
early in August, his wife and son falling into the hands of the English.
A few weeks later, he himself was slain in a swamp, by one of Captain
Church's Indians, and the main phase of the war, which, by bearing his
name, has unduly exalted his part in it, was over.[894]
Footnote 894:
Hubbard, _Indian Wars_, vol. I, p. 265; Church, _King Philip's War_,
pp. 145 _ff._
Hostilities, however, continued in the eastern settlements of Maine and
New Hampshire for two years longer. Owing to their scattered character,
and the difficulty of inflicting any telling blow upon the savages, who
could disappear into the limitless forests, and were supplied by the
French with arms and other necessities, Maine suffered proportionately
even more severely than its more populous neighbors to the south. The
story of the war there is the record of tragedy after tragedy enacted in
lonely farmhouse or isolated village. One episode only, and that because
of its later effect upon the Indian relations of the settlers, need be
alluded to. In the autumn of 1676, following the signing of a treaty in
July and a proclamation by the Massachusetts Court, several hundred
natives congregated at Major Waldron's house at Dover, with the
intention, apparently, of accepting terms of amnesty, and of testifying
to their friendly relations with the whites although there were some who
had borne arms against them. Unexpectedly, they were all taken into
custody by Massachusetts agents and carried off to Boston, and a large
proportion of them was sold into slavery in the West Indies. There are
various versions of the affair, and it is impossible to unravel the
truth, but, whether rightly or not, the eastern Indians felt that they
had been treacherously dealt with, and never forgot or forgave the
transaction.[895] Massachusetts, moreover, was unable to protect the
eastern settlements; and the treaty finally made with the Indians, in
the spring of 1678, carried the humiliating condition that the whites
were to pay an annual tribute to the natives.[896] The unfortunate
result of the war in that section was that the Indians felt themselves
superior to the whites in power, and they had come to believe that the
word of the latter could not be trusted.
Footnote 895:
_Cf._ Bodge, _Soldiers_, pp. 304 _ff._; _N. H. Prov. Papers_, vol. I,
pp. 354 _ff._; _Massachusetts Records_, vol. V, p. 72.
Footnote 896:
Belknap, _History_, vol. I, p. 129. He does not give the text, nor is
it in the _N. H. Prov. Papers_, though there is a letter relative to
it in the latter, vol. I, p. 365.
The captives taken in Philip's War were variously treated. Some, who
were considered especially guilty, were killed, and great numbers were
distributed among the whites as servants for a limited period. Many were
sold into slavery in the West Indies.[897] Among these unfortunates were
the wife and son of Philip, the latter a little lad of nine.[898] Even
the life of this grandson of Massasoit hung in the balance, and the
clergy, to whom the problem of his disposal was referred, advised that
he should be slain; but, as usual, the people were more merciful than
the ministers. Although even the Old Testament offered difficulties in
the way of precedents, John Cotton and Increase Mather thought that they
might be found, and called for the lad's blood,[899] Mather pointing out
that, although David indeed spared the life of little Hadad, it might
have been better had he not. The saintly Eliot, who throughout the war
had pleaded with the people of Massachusetts for justice and mercy for
the Christian Indians, as Williams had pleaded for the Pequots a
generation before, protested against the whole system of selling off the
natives, and in a letter to the Governor and Council uttered the
prophetic saying that “to sell soules for mony seemeth to me a dangerous
merchandize.”[900] But his voice, like Williams's, found no echo.
Footnote 897:
_Conn. Col. Records_, vol. II, pp. 297 _f._ The Assembly in Barbadoes
drew a bill to prevent the importation of these Indian slaves from New
England. _Cal. State Pap., Col., 1674-75_, p. 378.
Footnote 898:
Church, _King Philip's War_, p. 127.
Footnote 899:
Their letters are in _Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll._, Series IV, vol. VIII,
p. 689.
Footnote 900:
_Acts United Colonies_, vol. II, p. 452.
[Illustration:
Reverend John Cotton's Opinion that Philip's Son should be put to
Death
Original in Massachusetts Historical Society
]
The losses that the colonies had suffered were enormous. Maine did not
recover for half a century, and there was not a white man left in
Kennebec County. In Massachusetts sixteen towns were wholly destroyed or
abandoned, and four in Rhode Island.[901] Along the entire New England
frontier burned buildings and abandoned farms bore mute witness to the
fury of the struggle. Plymouth reported her war expenses as £11,743,
Connecticut hers as £22,173, and Massachusetts hers as £46,292, a total
equivalent to-day of over $2,000,000.[902] One man out of every sixteen
of military age had been killed. The struggle, however, had been
inevitable, and it is fortunate that it occurred when it did; for it is
improbable that the colonies could have sustained a double attack from
south and north had the domestic contest coincided with the French war
fifteen years later. Although they had been weakened in some respects,
their losses were only temporary, while the removal of the Indian menace
within their borders was a permanent gain. The ruined towns were
rebuilt, new lands were opened up, and the fact that, entirely by their
own efforts and without aid from England, the colonists had won
possession of their territory with the unlimited expenditure of their
own blood and treasure was of no little effect, then and later.
Footnote 901:
_Cf._ Mathews, _Expansion of New England_, pp. 57 _ff._; Hubbard,
_Indian Wars_, vol. II, pp. 39 _ff._; _Old Indian Chronicle_, pp. 101
_f._
Footnote 902:
_Acts United Colonies_, vol. II, pp. 402, 392, 393.
CHAPTER XV
LOSS OF THE MASSACHUSETTS CHARTER
The year 1676 was doubly noteworthy in the history of New England. As we
have seen in the preceding chapter, it marked the definite end of the
internal menace of the Indians in the colonies, which henceforth, except
for border wars, could develop their life without that lurking fear of
the savage that had always haunted the dwellers in such little towns as
were planted beyond the area of compact settlement. If, on the one hand,
the year thus seemed to open an era of an even more unrestricted
development for the peculiar polity of New England, on the other, it
also marked the beginning of a more determined effort on the part of the
mother-country to exert her power over the colonies, and to bring them
within the administrative scope of a better organized empire. The
resultant contest, the earlier phases of which have already been
described, was, in the main, carried on between Massachusetts and the
Crown, and continued intermittently during the quarter of a century from
the Restoration of the Stuarts to the inevitable loss of the colony's
charter in 1684. In a less critical day, it was wont to be described as
an unmitigated struggle between liberty-loving colonists fighting for
freedom, and a king bent solely upon wreaking his tyrannical will. But
the door of the past is not to be unlocked with so crude a key, and
historians have learned to distrust simple formulas.
In the domestic affairs of England, the question that was more and more
urgently pressing for solution was that of the location of sovereignty,
and the source of power. Following the Reformation, with the development
of the modern nationalities, the establishment of state-churches, and
the growth of dissent, the sixteenth century had witnessed the transfer
of allegiance from ecclesiastical to civil authority. The idea of law,
however, as non-moral and as derived from sanctions other than divine,
was but slowly coming into being. The theory of the divine right of a
king to rule, although it might be used to further the purposes of a
self-seeking monarch, had not been originated to serve that end. It was
a natural and necessary stage in the transfer of authoritative sanction
from the Papacy to the civil rulers. It was, in a word, “the assertion
that civil society has an inherent right to exist apart from its
ecclesiastical utility,” and that it has a sanctity of its own, which
may be set off against the claims of the theocrats.[903]
Footnote 903:
J. N. Figgis, “Political Thought in the 16th Century,” in _Cambridge
Modern History_, vol. III, pp. 751, 763. _Cf._ the same author's
_Divine Right of Kings_ (Cambridge University Press, 1914), pp. 44
_f._, 54, 100.
If we would understand the expression of a political idea, it is as
essential to study it in relation to the previous one which it was
brought forth to contradict, as it is to analyze it philosophically.
From the first standpoint, the doctrine of the divine right of kings
performed a useful bit of service, while, philosophically, it is neither
more nor less legitimate than that of the divine right of a majority.
Liberty is not, as our forefathers were too often told, a natural fact.
The only natural liberty is that granted to the individual, human or
brute, to sustain his life and propagate his species if he can, in the
face of a universe almost overwhelmingly bent upon their destruction.
Civil liberty, on the other hand, is purely social, and is a very
delicate and varying adjustment of rights and duties in the succeeding
stages of man's institutional development, which has risen and fallen in
the past as that equilibrium has been disturbed. The divine right of
kings was a protest against the divine right of the Pope. The divine
right of a majority is a protest against the divine right of kings; but
democracy has yet to prove whether it is any more capable than theocracy
or monarchy of the sustained moral effort necessary to maintain the
balance between rights and duties, so as to preserve and enlarge the
liberty of the individual.
Aside from this question of divine right, there was a good deal to be
said for the theory of sovereignty held by the later Stuarts, who
possessed not only the legal, but the recognized, right to summon and
dissolve Parliament, to create enough peers, lay and spiritual, and to
charter enough boroughs, to alter completely the composition of both the
Houses. With such a relationship, they may well have considered their
Parliaments as but emanations of their own power. There is, however,
even more to be admitted as to their later colonial policy. For while,
in their domestic struggle with Parliament, they were setting themselves
in opposition to almost all the progressive influences of the times, in
their colonial plans, they were furthering some of the most important.
The reign of Charles II may be taken to mark the end of religion and the
beginning of commerce as the prime influence in national politics and
international relations. From 1672, when Protestant England joined with
Catholic France to crush Protestant Holland, until 1815, the wars of
England were wars for trade; and the long duel for empire between that
country and France was to make the imperial question essentially one of
trade and defense. It was becoming more and more evident, indeed, that
the seventeenth-century empire rested, fundamentally, upon trade; and it
is probable that the pressure exerted by the merchant class was quite as
large an element in shaping policy as was any personal design of the
King.
The beginnings of settlement, scattered and unimportant, had in no way
presaged the empire which was to develop within a half-century, and not
only had territory been granted away recklessly, but the monarchs had
been equally heedless of the future in the forms of government which
they had permitted to grow up. By the time our story has now reached,
the colonial problem, aside from any question of tyranny, undoubtedly
called for new treatment. If the Empire were not to be a source of great
military weakness, and if the Navigation Acts, upon which its commercial
power rested, were to be properly enforced, it was obvious that a much
greater degree of administrative unity and control would have to be
realized. In particular, the granting of the charters, in which no
provision had been made for a royal governor or for any definite channel
of communication between the imperial government and the colony, had
undoubtedly been a serious administrative blunder, which the attitude of
Massachusetts had made at once worse and more obvious.
Indeed, just at a time when a strong administrative control was most
necessary, it may well have appeared as if the Empire were drifting
toward disruption. However different the material for colonization may
have been in the various colonies,—and, in the main, it is now
considered as more uniform than was formerly thought to have been the
case,—the frontier influence was at work in them all; and the main
characteristic which they possessed in common was their insistence upon
the right of self-government. Not only among the continental colonies,
but among the island ones as well, we find the same spirit from the
start, and the same reiterated demand for assemblies and self-taxation.
The story varies only in detail, whether we study Tobago, Trinidad,
Antigua, Nevis, Jamaica, Barbadoes, Bermuda, or New England.[904] These
two points were wholly compatible with a well-organized empire, however,
and England, for the most part, made no effort to interfere with either.
Footnote 904:
H. E. Egerton, in _Cambridge Modern History_, vol. IV, p. 758; V. L.
Oliver, _History of the Island of Antigua_ (London, 1894-99), vol. I,
p. xxxix; _Cal. State Pap., Col., 1661-68_, pp. 545, 169 _ff._, 96.
It was a different matter when the colonies declined to admit that the
imperial government possessed any authority over them, or refused to
observe those laws made for the regulation of the Empire as a whole. The
case of Massachusetts had become notorious, not only throughout the
Empire, but even among foreigners; and Colbert's agent in the French
West Indies could write that “the English who dwell near Boston will not
worry themselves about the prohibitions which the King of England may
issue, because they hardly recognize his authority.”[905] Although, with
reference to Virginia, it was reported that this “New England disease is
very catching,”[906] it seems to have been indigenous in the soil of
most of the colonies. It had long since been reported that many in
Barbadoes wished to become independent “and not run any fortune with
England either in peace or war,” but to erect their “little limb of the
Commonwealth into a free state.”[907] In the very year in which
Massachusetts lost her charter, the inhabitants of Bermuda were
proclaiming that “we are free-born people, our Lands are our own, and
wee will doe with our own what wee please, and if wee doe not like of
the King's Government wee can desert the Country.”[908]
Footnote 905:
Cited by Mims, _Colbert's West Indian Policy_, p. 222.
Footnote 906:
_Cal. State Pap., Col., 1675-76_, p. 153.
Footnote 907:
_Cal. State Pap., Col., 1574-1660_, pp. 384, 408.
Footnote 908:
_Ibid._, _1685-88_, p. 49.
Aside from the influence of the frontier, however, the element of time
was also beginning to make itself felt. In New England, practically the
entire first generation of settlers had died by the end of Philip's War.
The “freemen” who were now guiding her destinies had, for the most part,
been born in the settlements, and were colonials, in the strict sense of
the word. They possessed no fond memories of the mother-country, or
close personal ties with individuals there. Their interests and outlook
were provincial and local to a degree that we can hardly realize. They
were caught in a little back-water, and the great current of English
life was sweeping on with but slight influence upon them. The first
planters had been drawn to a large extent from a very sound element in
the England of their day, but, with few exceptions, they were men of
narrow outlook, which had naturally become still narrower in their
laborious, isolated life in America. Among the religious elements in the
new communities, the intensity of their faith in the divine nature of
their mission, combined with their extraordinary self-consciousness,
tended to breed a belief in their own superiority, which infected not
only the whole of New England, but much subsequent historical writing.
Stoughton's preaching that “God sifted a whole nation that he might send
choice grain over into this wilderness” was but a mild expression of
what the New Englanders thoroughly believed and loved to be told.[909]
Footnote 909:
_New England's true Interest not to Lie_; cited by Tyler, _History of
American Literature_ (New York, 1879), vol. II, p. 163.
We have already expressed our high appreciation of the character of much
of the early immigration to that section of the country; but it cannot
be claimed that it included any of the real leaders in England in any
line of thought or action; and figures which loom large against the
background of the wilderness change their proportions materially when
measured by the national life in the old country. It has been claimed
that Cromwell, at one time, thought seriously of emigrating to New
England; and it is illuminating to consider, had he done so, the
resultant comparative stature, in view of the new standard of measure
thus introduced, of such men as Bradstreet and Stoughton. The New
England leaders were, indeed, of a more intellectual type generally than
came to the other colonies, and there was, perhaps, more play of mind
among the people than in either the southern continental or the island
settlements. Common-school education was fostered to a degree unknown
elsewhere at the time, and the village school, with the town-meeting and
the Congregational church, soon took its place in New England's typical
community life. In 1647, Massachusetts passed a law requiring every town
of fifty families to maintain a teacher of reading and writing, and each
town of one hundred families to establish a grammar school.[910] Every
town in Connecticut had its provision for elementary education, and each
county its Latin school. Even Plymouth, in spite of its poverty, was
also fairly well provided.[911] In Harvard, which was founded as early
as 1636, the colonies long possessed the only English institution of
higher learning in the new world, although there was a French college in
Quebec, founded at virtually the same time as Harvard.[912] The early
Virginia settlers were, at first, indeed, as solicitous as the New
Englanders about education, but the results of the geographic
environment were felt as strongly in this as in the other matters on
which we have already touched. With the bad roads and the scattered life
of the plantations, it was impossible for the common school to take root
as it did in the compact little villages of New England. But if the
common schooling was somewhat less diffused, the culture of the educated
class was wider, and the private libraries of the Virginians offer to
the booklover a refreshing contrast to the dead weight of theology on
the New England shelves. Nor were these southern libraries confined, as
used to be thought, to a few families, research tending constantly to
minimize the supposed difference between New England and the rest of the
colonies in this regard.[913]
Footnote 910:
_Massachusetts Records_, vol. II, p. 203.
Footnote 911:
_Conn. Col. Records_, vols. II, p. 307, and III, p. 9; _Plymouth
Records_, vol. II, pp. 81, 102. Rhode Island seems to have been
backward, but had at least one school as early as 1640. _Vide_ Arnold,
_Rhode Island_, vol. I, p. 145.
Footnote 912:
_Massachusetts Records_, vol. I, p. 183; G. M. Wrong, _Conquest of New
France_ (Yale University Press, 1918), p. 42.
Footnote 913:
_Cf._ _Virginia Magazine_, vols. III, pp. 388 _ff._, VII, pp. 299
_ff._, X, pp. 399 _ff._, and XVII, pp. 147 _f._; _William and Mary
Quarterly_, vols. II, pp. 169 _ff._, III, pp. 43 _f._, 132 _f._, 180
_f._, 246 _f._, and IV, pp. 15 _f._, 94, 156. _Cf._ J. H. Tuttle “The
Libraries of the Mathers,” in _American Antiquarian Society
Proceedings_, N. S., vol. XX, pp. 269 _ff._
Moreover, although her devotion to education was to bear noble fruit in
the years to come, and is one of the chief contributions of New England
to our national life, its original object, and almost the sole use to
which it was put, was religious, and it may be questioned whether its
earlier influence upon the people at large was not narrowing rather than
broadening. For, in the absence, for the average citizen in New England,
of almost any books other than theological, and of any intellectual
stimulus other than the sermon, the earlier result of such education as
the people received seems to have been mainly an intensified
preoccupation with the problems of Calvinism, and a remarkable extension
of the influence of the priesthood. The attitude of Massachusetts, in
extirpating so far as possible all ideas opposed to her official
theology, in banishing those who persisted in giving expression to them,
and in exercising a strict censorship over the only printing-press in
New England, nullified, to a great extent, the benefits that might
otherwise have been derived from her “educational” system in the sense
of schools.[914] In the writings of the men who settled Massachusetts or
visited it in the earliest period, there is a freshness and charm of
outlook and phrase which allures the reader even of to-day. In Smith or
Bradford, Higginson or Wood, one feels in the presence of a healthy
mind, actively interested in this world or the next; but when these men
have passed, the balance of the century leaves us hardly a work which,
for a modern reader, possesses any interest other than antiquarian or
historical.
Footnote 914:
C. A. Duniway, _Development of Freedom of the Press in Massachusetts_
(Harvard University Press, 1906), pp. 22 _ff._
In England, men's minds had been profoundly stirred by the great
parliamentary struggle, the Civil War, and all the influences of the new
period. In science, Ray was founding systematic zoölogy, Harvey had
discovered the circulation of the blood, Newton the law of gravitation,
Boyle the law of gases which bears his name, and Halley was working in
his observatory at Greenwich. Among the numerous contemporary writers
whom our educated colonists might have been reading had they been in
England, we may mention, at hazard, Locke, Hobbes, Butler, Marvell, Sir
Thomas Browne, Milton, Taylor, Izaak Walton, Bunyan, Fuller, Clarendon,
Herbert, Dryden, and Herrick. But of all this varied intellectual life,
it may be said that practically nothing reached the vast majority of New
Englanders, whose science was still made up of the superstitious
observances of “special providences,” and whose political life was
centred in the meeting of church or town. If they felt the need of
verse, they read Uriah Oakes or Michael Wigglesworth, and the need must
have been as great as its reward was inadequate. Of other printed
literature indigenous to the soil, there was practically none except
theological, and the few historical accounts brought out by the Indian
wars.[915]
Footnote 915:
_Vide_ the appallingly theological and dreary catalogue of the Boston
bookseller, Michael Perry, in John Dunton's _Letters from New England_
(Prince Society, 1867), pp. 314 _ff._ The whole intellectual life of
the period in England noted above is unrepresented by a single volume
except _Pilgrim's Progress_.
Such impoverishment of the intellectual life was a necessary consequence
of living in the wilderness in the seventeenth century; but it was none
the less a misfortune because inevitable. In New England, however, a
peculiar result ensued from the combination of the extreme rarity of the
intellectual atmosphere and the partial education of her people. In the
other colonies, men may have been more ignorant of books, but they were
healthy-minded. In New England, the concentration of an awakened mental
life almost wholly upon the problems of election or damnation created a
condition of ethical morbidity, and bequeathed to us the legacy of what
may almost be called that section's fourth contribution to American
life—the New England conscience, with its pathological questionings and
elaborate system of taboos. It is an interesting psychological study,
not without its immediate historical bearings, to contrast the diaries
of such English officials as Pepys or Evelyn with that kept by the
active Massachusetts official, Sewall, who could amuse himself all
Christmas Day arranging the coffins in the family vault, and pronounce
the occupation to have been “an awfull yet pleasing Treat.”[916] Toward
the end of the seventeenth century, public opinion in New England,
economic, religious, political, and social, had grown largely out of
touch with that in the old country; but the nature of the case demanded
that, in the last analysis, the government of the Empire must be mainly
determined by the latter and not by the former.
Footnote 916:
Samuel Sewall, _Diary_, vol. I, p. 444.
As in England, however, parties based on civil differences were
replacing the old religious ones, so in New England, parties were
forming due to the rise of altered economic conditions, and the passing
of the early religious spirit. We have already noted the presence in
Massachusetts, from the start, of a considerable body of dissent from
the doctrine and polity of the colonial state church, and the decline in
fervor even within the group of the Saints themselves. Men who,
according to the official church theory, were not of the elect, and yet
who were conscious of trying to live helpful, honest, God-fearing lives,
refused to acknowledge the truth of the denunciations which, under
penalty of fine, they were forced to listen to, Sunday after Sunday,
hurled at themselves by the leading divines. Hooker might thunder that
“no carrion in a ditch smells more loathsomely in the nostrils of man,
than a natural man's works do in the nostrils of the Almighty”; or
Shepard declare that the mind of the natural man “is a nest of all the
foul opinions, heresies, that ever were vented,” and his heart “a foul
sink all of atheism, sodomy, blasphemy, murder, whoredom, adultery,
witchcraft, buggery.”[917] The bow had been bent too long, and had lost
its spring. Bradstreet might still demand that “the old stand firm”
against “that cursed Bratt Toleration,” but Bishop reported more truly
“that many are gospel-glutted and growing weary.”[918]
Footnote 917:
Extracts, in Tyler, _American Literature_, vol. I, pp. 201, 208.
Footnote 918:
Letters to Increase Mather, in _Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll._, Series IV,
vol. VIII, pp. 478, 314.
At the time when religion was thus gradually passing as the leading
cause of division in New England, other forces were at work to align the
citizens into new parties. In a former chapter, we called attention to
the early beginning, on a small scale, of the divergence between the
life of the frontiers and that of the older and more established
settlements. With the growth of a few of the larger centres, notably
Boston, there also developed the conflict of economic interests and
political outlook between town and country.[919] The prosperity of the
Empire under the Navigation Acts had increased enormously, and New
England, although refusing to obey the laws, had shared to the full in
the resultant growth of trade and wealth. From all these causes, there
had developed fairly distinct opposing groups—a large element of
liberals in theology, as against the maintainers of rigid orthodoxy; a
conservative “east” against a radical “west,” a progressive urban
population, contrasted with the more narrow-minded, unchanging rural
laborers and farmers; and a trading, moneyed class, with views and
interests differing from the agricultural.[920] The distinctions are
real and marked, though the numbers of those in the various parties, and
their exact groupings on special questions, can only be approximated.
The magistrates, consisting, for the most part, of men of wealth and
position chosen from the larger centres, and the deputies, resident in
each of the towns from which they were elected, represented, in their
differing attitudes, the moderate and radical opinion of the colonies as
a whole. In the relations with England, those who were liberal in
theology, in closer personal or commercial contact with the old country,
and more conservative in their outlook, would naturally favor a
conciliatory attitude. Those, on the other hand, who believed that the
supreme object at stake was the maintaining of the peculiar
ecclesiastical organization of their church-state, with its religious
franchise tests, and those who had no direct business relations with
England or other countries, would as naturally tend to adopt an
unyielding attitude of opposition. There is a direct line of descent
from the moderate party of 1676 to the Loyalist party of 1776; and, as
the wholesale condemnation of the latter is now considered uncritical,
so, also, we cannot off-hand divide the parties of the earlier struggle
into traitors and patriots.
Footnote 919:
_Cf._ _Queries upon the present state of the New English affairs_, by
S. E. (London, _circa_ 1689); Sabin reprint, New York, 1865, p. 17.
Footnote 920:
Randolph wrote in Feb., 1686: “There are no small endeavors betwixt
the Landed men and the Merct how to ease the publick Charges: The
Mercts are for land Taxes, but Mr. Dudley, Stoughton and others who
have gott very larg tracts of Land are for Laying all upon the trading
party,” etc. _Randolph Papers_, vol. VI, p. 211.
As in old England the main question of the day was the location of
sovereignty, so it was in the New, and in the relations between the two.
The theory of the state as based upon original contract, which, although
implicit in feudalism, was, as we have seen, probably derived in New
England from the church covenant, had even less historical or
philosophical basis than that of divine right. However, the advances
made by mankind are not less real because they have nearly always been
contemporaneously justified by false assumptions. In such cases
“conclusions are more permanent than premises,” as Mr. Balfour points
out in speaking of “the incongruity between the causes by which beliefs
are sustained, and the official reasons by which they are from time to
time justified.”[921] It is in this very failure of man to reason
rightly as to the grounds of his own efforts that we perceive most
clearly the operations of forces in human history independent of man's
own will and thought, precisely where, for himself, the illusion of a
reasoned freedom is strongest. Although the theories of divine right and
of original compact have now both been discarded among the philosophical
lumber of the past, the latter theory was of enormous influence in
shaping American political thought. Before, however, that thought could
legitimately give expression to the dictum, “No taxation without
representation,” it was necessary that the community as a whole, and not
a religious sect, should be considered to be the “people”; and before
Massachusetts could join in declaring that “All men are created equal,”
she had to abandon her earlier politico-religious distinction between a
minority born to be everlasting saints and a majority doomed to eternal
damnation. We must now turn to consider, more in detail, the story of
how that result was achieved.
Footnote 921:
A. J. Balfour, _Foundations of Belief_ (New York, 1918), p. 227.
The heirs of Mason and Gorges had never abandoned their claims to the
territory in New Hampshire and Maine which had been illegally absorbed
by Massachusetts, and, of late, they had been pressing their respective
cases with more and more insistence. In May, 1675, the law officers of
the Crown reported to the Committee for Foreign Plantations that, in
their opinion, both claims were based upon valid titles.[922] It was not
mainly, however, the complaints of these individual claimants, or
Mason's detailed recommendations to send commissioners to New
England,[923] which decided the government to take a more active part in
the administration of the colonies. Peace had been signed with the Dutch
in the preceding year, and the ending of the war provided leisure for
undertaking more seriously the reorganization of colonial
administration. The reform began at home with the abolition of the old
Council Committee, and the placing of colonial affairs in the hands of a
new committee known as the Lords of Trade and Plantations. Its members
were able men, well qualified for their work, and displayed considerable
energy, holding eighty-nine meetings in the first year after their
organization.[924]
Footnote 922:
_Cal. State Pap., Col., 1675-76_, pp. 232 _f._
Footnote 923:
_Ibid._, pp. 222 _ff._
Footnote 924:
_Cf._ W. T. Root, “Lords of Trade and Plantations, 1675-1696,” in
_American Historical Review_, vol. XXIII, pp. 21 _ff._ Also, Andrews,
_British Committees_, pp. 111 _ff._
The New England question promptly came in for a share of their
attention. We have already noted the many and constant complaints in
regard to Massachusetts, and the attitude of that colony toward the
Royal Commissioners in 1664. While all these old matters, as well as the
newly delivered legal opinions regarding the Mason and Gorges claims,
were before the Lords of Trade, they probably found their chief ground
for dissatisfaction with Massachusetts in her disregard of the
Navigation Acts, and the assumption of virtual independence. Captain
Wyborne of H. M. S. Garland, after a visit to Boston, reported that New
England's trade to Europe and the West Indies had become very great, and
that the magistrates refused to act regarding violations of the law, the
people looking upon themselves as “a free state.”[925] About six weeks
later, twenty-eight English merchants complained that New England was
illegally trading on a great scale between Europe and the various parts
of the British Empire, and so underselling the English in both markets,
and ruining business.[926] New England herself produced none of the
“enumerated commodities,” and, had she confined herself to legitimate
trade, would not have been placed at any appreciable disadvantage by the
Navigation Acts of this period. By evading the law, however, she gained
not only the advantage of an unrestricted commerce, when such was not
allowed in any of the over-seas empires of the time, but also an extra,
illegitimate profit, over and above her law-abiding competitors, exactly
as a smuggler of dutiable articles makes a larger profit than the
legitimate merchant, solely by virtue of the existence of the very laws
that the former evades. The amount lost by England on New England's
domestic illegal trade was not great; but, if the rapidly increasing
business of those colonies between Europe and the rest of the Empire
were allowed to go on unchecked, the integrity of the whole imperial
structure would be seriously threatened.[927]
Footnote 925:
_Cal. State Pap., Col., 1675-76_, pp. 306 _ff._; Beer, _Old Colonial
System_, vol. II, pp. 257 _f._
Footnote 926:
_Cal. State Pap., Col., 1675-76_, p. 337. The complaint is given in
full in _Randolph Papers_, vol. I, pp. 49 _n._ The latter gives 25
signers, while the Calendar gives 28.
Footnote 927:
_Cf._ Beer, _Old Colonial System_, vol. II, pp. 256 _f._, 308 _f._
Mason had advised that a new commissioner, or a governor general, be
sent to New England; but the English government refused, on the ground
that it would give needless affront, and “would look like awarding
execution on those people before they were heard.”[928] It was,
therefore, decided that Massachusetts should be asked to send over
agents; and, probably in view of the colony's now well-known policy of
delay, it was determined to transmit the demand by a special messenger,
who should bring back personally the answer of the General Court. The
individual selected for this task was Edward Randolph, who was
instructed, not only to deliver the King's letter, and receive the
reply, but also to make a report on trade and other conditions in the
colony, in order that the government might have a better basis for
intelligent action.[929]
Footnote 928:
_Cal. State Pap., Col., 1675-76_, p. 308.
Footnote 929:
_Ibid._, pp. 322, 358, 362.
Randolph was of the narrow-minded, official type, a stickler for
technicalities, a thorough believer in centralized imperial control, and
easily influenced by prejudice, but possessed of enormous energy, and of
very considerable ability. He had the not uncommon fault of forcing
facts to fit his theories rather than building theories from the facts;
but in his long connection with the colonies, in offices in which it
would have been peculiarly easy to live by bribes, he was incorruptibly
honest, a rare quality in that day. Moreover, although always poor, and
in his later life embittered, he could yet be generous toward the
distress of others; and when Mason's motherless children were suffering
from poverty in England, he allowed them £20 a year from his own scanty
income.[930] While he was violently opposed to the decentralization of
authority involved in the charter governments, he was not anxious to
play the tyrant, and seems to have believed that the changes he had at
heart would benefit not only the Empire, but the colonists as well. On
more than one occasion, indeed, this “blasted wretch,” as Mather called
him, defended their interests against the Crown. No English official in
our colonial history, however, was more thoroughly hated, and he
returned the feeling in so far as the ruling powers of Massachusetts
were concerned. In this he was hardly to be blamed, for their attitude
and policy toward him, from the first, consisted in covert obstruction
and open insult.
Footnote 930:
_Randolph Papers_, vol. IV, p. 69.
He arrived in Boston early in June, and at once showed his credentials,
and stated his errand, to Governor Leverett. At the meeting of the
Council, at which the King's letter was presented, the Governor and all
but three magistrates kept their hats on while the missive was being
read, refusing to uncover according to the usual custom. When the
reading was concluded, Leverett curtly stated that “the matters therein
contained were very inconsiderable things and easily answered,”
although, in reality, it was the most important communication that the
local government had ever received. When Randolph called their attention
to the demand of the King that an answer be returned, he was simply told
that the matter would be considered.[931]
Footnote 931:
_Randolph Papers_, vol. II, pp. 216 _f._
Although his instructions were that he should remain a month, in order
to gather the data required before returning, the Council announced,
within two days, that they had an answer prepared to the royal letter,
which they were going to send immediately, but which they would not
entrust to Randolph, offering him only a copy, despite the King's
express command. When Randolph asked if they could have well considered
so weighty a matter in forty-eight hours, he was curtly requested to
withdraw, unless he had further orders from the King, as the Councillors
looked upon him as Mason's agent.
Meanwhile, several ships had arrived direct from various European ports,
contrary to the Navigation Acts, of which Randolph spoke to the Governor
in the course of an interview on the following day. Leverett thereupon
declared that the laws made by King and Parliament did not apply to
Massachusetts, and that any dispute between England and the colony was
to be decided by the colony and not by England.[932]
Footnote 932:
_Ibid._, pp. 218 _f._ While our account is derived from Randolph,
there is no reason to doubt its accuracy, for the statement contained
nothing contrary to the frequently avowed policy of the colony, as we
have already found.
Randolph next proceeded into New Hampshire, where he showed letters from
Mason, and naturally received many complaints from disaffected
inhabitants in regard to Massachusetts. For his actions there, he was
sharply rebuked by Leverett, who accused him of trying to “make a mutiny
and disturbance.” Randolph had also suggested, just before going to New
Hampshire, that the General Court be summoned, in order to consider the
King's dispatch; but this was not done, and he finally sailed for
England with only a copy of the letter written by the Council.[933] In
that letter, Leverett wrote, with considerable effrontery, that the
complaints of Mason and Gorges were “impertinencies, mistakes and
falsehoods,” but said nothing about complying with the demand to send
agents, except that the General Court, which, he claimed, could not then
be summoned on account of sickness and the Indian War, would be convened
later.[934]
Footnote 933:
_Randolph Papers_, vol. II, pp. 220, 224 _f._, 203 _ff._
Footnote 934:
_Cal. State Pap., Col., 1675-76_, pp. 402 _f._
Owing to the unwise course of the rulers, Randolph could hardly fail to
have been biased by the information received from their opponents; and
the result is evident in the long report which he submitted to the Lords
of Trade on his return. Although, owing to his preconceived ideas, and
the circumstances of his stay, he misjudged the strength of the opposing
parties in the colony, and although certain of his statistics were
greatly exaggerated, the report, on the whole, gave a detailed and
truthful presentation of the general situation, and confirmed other
information possessed in England.[935] For, while Randolph was on his
way west, the Lords of Trade had pursued their investigations, and
summoned before them merchants trading with New England. Of these, “some
were shy to unfold the mystery, others pretended ignorance, but most
declared plainly” that New England traders were regularly breaking the
law, and that, by their direct trade in European goods with the other
colonies they were able to undersell, by twenty per cent, those doing a
legitimate business.[936] This was confirmed, a few weeks later, by an
official returned from a trip to the West Indies, who reported seventeen
New England ships engaged there in a clandestine trade with Europe in
log-wood for dyeing, which not only threatened to involve the whole
Empire in a war with Spain, but provided England's rivals with cheaper
dyes than she herself obtained.[937] It was becoming more and more
evident, the deeper the matter was probed, that the question was not a
domestic one for Massachusetts, whatever she might choose to assume, but
one that involved the interests of England and the Empire.
Footnote 935:
Osgood's estimate of the report, as well as Beer's, seems to me more
just than Doyle's. Osgood, _American Colonies_, vol. III, pp. 316
_f._; Beer, _Old Colonial System_, vol. II, p. 265; Doyle, _Puritan
Colonies_, vol. II, pp. 196 _f._ The report is given in full in
_Randolph Papers_, vol. II, pp. 225 _ff._
Footnote 936:
_Cal. State Pap., Col., 1675-76_, pp. 377, 379 _f._
Footnote 937:
_Ibid._, p. 398; Beer, _Old Colonial System_, vol. II, p. 256.
The meeting of the General Court in Massachusetts, to consider the
King's letter, was not held until August, when the question of complying
with the order to send agents to England was referred for advice to the
clergy, as usual. Their opinion being in favor of obedience, the
people's representatives, in the following month, adopted an address to
the King, and appointed Stoughton and Bulkley as agents.[938] The
address was accompanied by a long statement of the claims of
Massachusetts to the disputed eastern territory, which presented her
interpretation of her boundaries, and the benefits to the inhabitants of
her government there, in as favorable a light as possible, dismissing
the claims of Mason and Gorges, adjudged valid by the Crown lawyers, as
“frivolous and insignificant allegations.”[939] The colony still
delayed, however, and her agents did not reach England until January of
the following year. Their position was evidently realized to be an
unenviable one, for the Reverend John Eliot wrote in his diary, “Mr.
Stoughton & mr. Bulkly were sent to England to agent for the Country.
Lord p'ty ym.”[940] They were furnished with two sets of instructions,
according to which they were given authority to act in regard to the
Mason-Gorges matters only, and to plead lack of power as to all others.
They were also, on the one hand, to represent to the King that the
eastern provinces were of little value, and, on the other, to endeavor
to purchase them from Mason and Gorges, if possible.[941]
Footnote 938:
_Massachusetts Records_, vol. V, pp. 99 _f._, 113.
Footnote 939:
_Ibid._, pp. 108 _ff._
Footnote 940:
_Boston Record Commissioners' Report_, vol. VI, p. 195.
Footnote 941:
_Massachusetts Records_, vol. V, pp. 113-117.
In limiting her agents to the one matter of the eastern provinces,
Massachusetts was technically complying with the King's request; but the
New England question was much wider in scope than that, and the unhappy
agents soon found themselves in deep waters. The colony's policy had
been such that the English government could not expect more from other
agents than from those who were then actually present, who were, after
all, primarily English subjects and not colonial representatives, and
who could, therefore, well be called upon to explain their colony's
acts, though they could not bind her by agreements. Randolph was now
busily engaged in pressing his views on the government, listing the
crimes and misdemeanors of the colony, and outlining a course of action.
While some of his accusations were so exaggerated as to be palpably
false, others were unquestionably true, such as denying appeals to
England, violating the Navigation Acts, imposing an oath of fidelity to
the local government while refusing the oath of allegiance to England,
and putting English citizens to death for religious opinions.[942] He
proposed that the King issue a general pardon for all past offenses,
confirm real-estate titles on payment of a moderate quit-rent, grant
liberty of conscience, and organize the colony as a royal province.[943]
Detailed evidence, in reference to the illegal trading, derived from
such widely separated points as London, Jamaica, and Amsterdam, was also
laid before the Committee.[944] All these various allegations, together
with the question of the validity of the charter, and the laws made by
the General Court, were divided into “matters of law” and “matters of
state,” and submitted to the Judges and Privy Council respectively.[945]
While the decisions were pending, the agents were questioned in
reference to the complaints against the colony, and answered as “private
men,” admitting some of the statements, as to coining money and
violating the Navigation Acts, but denying that the Quakers had been put
to death on account of their religion only.[946]
Footnote 942:
_Randolph Papers_, vol. II., pp. 265 _ff._
Footnote 943:
_Ibid._, pp. 265 _ff._
Footnote 944:
_Ibid._, pp. 268 _ff._; _Cal. State Pap., Col., 1677-80_, p. 102.
Footnote 945:
_Randolph Papers_, pp. 270 _ff._
Footnote 946:
_Randolph Papers_, vol. II, pp. 276 _f._
The decisions of the judges in regard to the matters submitted to them
were eminently fair. The validity of the Massachusetts charter was
upheld as originally granted, and it was further stated that the
document had created the patentees a corporation upon the place. The
latter opinion, which was of very doubtful legality, not only decided,
in so far as it went, that the transfer of the charter to New England
had been legal, but also settled in favor of the colony the question
whether or not the _Quo Warranto_ proceedings of 1635 had in reality
dissolved the corporation. In regard to the geographical limits of the
colony, however, the interpretation that Massachusetts had developed, in
order to cover her encroachments, was declared to be without foundation.
But at the last moment either the agents or the colony's counsel had
themselves retracted the absurd claims, in spite of their recent
statement that those of Gorges and Mason were “frivolous,” and the
earlier characterization of them as impertinent falsehoods. Those of the
former were now sustained in full, both as to ownership and power of
government. Mason was declared not to have received any legal rights to
govern, although his title to the land north of the Merrimac was
pronounced a valid one. As to the smaller territory in dispute, lying
between that river and Salem, the Attorney-General was of the opinion
that Mason had never taken legal possession, and that his claim,
therefore, was probably not good against the actual possession by
Massachusetts settlers for fifty years; but that the question would have
to be tried in courts upon the place.[947]
Footnote 947:
_Cal. State Pap., Col., 1677-80_, pp. 118 _ff._; Hutchinson,
_History_, vol. I, pp. 284 _ff._; _Acts Privy Council, Colonial,
1613-80_, pp. 722 _ff._
In regard to the Massachusetts laws, the Attorney-General properly
objected to making capital such offenses “which are so by the word of
God,” it being “suspicious what are so.” He pointed in particular, also,
to such statutes as provided for the putting to death of stubborn and
rebellious children, for civil marriage, for levying fines for observing
Christmas Day, and laying penalties upon children for playing on Sunday,
as well as those against heresy, and to the lack of provision for the
oath of allegiance.[948]
Footnote 948:
_Cal. State Pap., Col., 1677-80_, pp. 139 _ff._
All these matters were then discussed with the agents, who were told
that Massachusetts must confine herself to her legal boundaries, that
she must ask pardon for having coined money, prepare to accept a
supplementary charter, observe the Navigation Acts, receive a royal
revenue officer, and repeal such laws as were repugnant to the laws of
England. The question of the colony's assumed right to tax non-freemen
and strangers was also raised. The agents were further told that they
could not return home as yet, as their presence would be useful; and as
for their not having full powers, “his Majesty did not think of treating
with his own subjects as with foreigners.” The whole course of
Massachusetts in reference to the Royal Commissioners and her own
agents, and her assuming to deal with the home government or not as she
pleased, as if she were in reality independent and sovereign, had made
some such step necessary, unless England was willing to allow the Empire
to disintegrate. The agents were also sharply reminded that although,
twelve years previously, the colony had been told that it could not
retain the exclusive religious test for the franchise, and a law had
been passed ostensibly granting it to non-church members, yet in reality
the law was disregarded, and virtually only church members were allowed
to vote.
To this the agents made a reply so disingenuous as to be false. They
stated that they knew of no such practice, and that religious opinion
was no bar to being elected a freeman, although the records indicate
that only one man who was not a church member had been given the
franchise in the preceding eleven years, as compared with eight hundred
and seventy-five who were church members.[949] Moreover, only five years
previously, in the legal code of 1672, the law disfranchising all
persons who did not attend the Congregational church had been reënacted,
and, in fact, remained in force until the forfeiture of the charter.
Footnote 949:
The nature of the law has already been discussed. McKinley states that
from 1664 to 1680 inclusive, 20 non-church members were admitted on
certificates. Of these six were in 1664 and four in 1680. Of the
remaining ten, however, reference to the Records seems to show that
nine were church members, leaving only the one mentioned in my text.
McKinley, _Suffrage_, pp. 328 _f._; _Massachusetts Records_, vol. IV,
pt. ii, pp. 145 _f._, 408.
The agents having sent home an account of their mission, the General
Court passed a law requiring obedience to the Navigation Acts, and,
without foundation, stated in a preamble that the King's desire that the
laws be enforced had not “binn before now signified unto us,” although
the colony's failure to observe them had been one of the main complaints
of the Royal Commissioners in 1665, and in that year, the Court had
promised to obey them and had repealed laws inconsistent with them.[950]
The government immediately called this false statement to the attention
of the colony's agents, who attempted to apologize for it as an “act of
precipitation,” made just as the Court was rising,[951] which could
hardly improve the government's opinion of the honesty of the colonial
authorities, or of the attention they were giving to a very serious
situation. As a matter of fact, it is difficult to find excuse for the
statement; for not only were all the earlier proceedings a matter of
record, but of the eleven magistrates who now declared that the colony
had never had any knowledge of the matter before, nine had been members
of the earlier Court, which had received the complaints, and passed the
legislation. The Court's own communication thus seemed to prove
Randolph's contention, and the evidence from other sources, that
Massachusetts was, in reality, paying no attention to the laws of trade.
Footnote 950:
_Ibid._, pp. 193, 202, and vol. V, p. 155.
Footnote 951:
_Randolph Papers_, vol. II, p. 295.
No effort was made by the Court to meet the other charges or
requirements, and, so far from enforcing the oath of allegiance, they
passed a new ordinance that any one in the colony, stranger or resident,
who refused to take the local oath of fidelity, should be deprived of
all legal rights and protection.[952] In spite of the failure of the
Court to attempt to meet any of the other points raised by the English
government, they petitioned for an extension of the colony's northern
boundary so as to include the land lying between the Merrimac and the
Piscataqua, and again instructed their agents to buy Maine from
Gorges.[953]
Footnote 952:
_Massachusetts Records_, vol. V, pp. 154 _f._
Footnote 953:
_Ibid._, 158, 164; _Cal. State Pap., Col., 1677-80_, pp. 147 _ff._,
198.
Randolph had no difficulty in exposing the misstatements as to the
franchise and the Navigation Acts, and made further representations to
the Lords of Trade. That body was now thoroughly tired of the attitude
and tactics of Massachusetts, and decided that, so far from granting
that colony an extension of territory, the “whole matter ought to bee
considered from the Very Root.”[954] They decided that the colonists
both ignored “fair persuasions” and took no notice of orders, and that
it was evidently impossible, judging presumably from the statements that
were made by both the colonial government and its agents, to determine
whether the laws were being enforced or not. In view of the facts, some
of the Lords were of the opinion that nothing would solve the problem
except the sending out of a royal governor, who could look after
imperial interests and serve as a real channel of communication between
the colony and the home government. As this could not be done under the
charter, the question was referred to the Attorney-General whether, if
the charter were, indeed, valid, the violations of its provisions had
been sufficient to warrant its forfeiture.[955] His opinion being that
the violations were great enough to justify action, the Lords advised
that _Quo Warranto_ proceedings be instituted, and that Randolph be
appointed Collector of Customs in New England. Shortly after, he
received the appointment, in spite of the protests of the agents.[956]
For the first time there was now to be resident in the colony an
official directly responsible to the imperial, and not to the local,
government. The choice of both office and person for the introduction of
a new system of control was unfortunate, but the change in the system
itself had been forced by the colony's own rulers.
Footnote 954:
_Randolph Papers_, vols. II, p. 297, and VI, pp. 73 _f._
Footnote 955:
_Ibid._, vol. II, p. 297. In spite of the former decision, serious
doubts had been cast upon its validity, which cannot be dismissed
lightly. _Cf._ Osgood, _American Colonies_, vol. III, p. 322.
Footnote 956:
_Randolph Papers_, vols. III, pp. 3 _ff._, and VI, pp. 75 _ff._
Meanwhile, Massachusetts was doing nothing to render her position more
favorable, and the purchase of Maine, which the agents had effected
privately with Gorges for £1250, further irritated the government.[957]
Moreover, although Gorges could not alienate his rights of government,
Massachusetts proceeded to exercise them in defiance of the royal order,
of her own legal powers, and gradually, it would seem, of the desires of
the inhabitants.[958] The disaffection of the Maine people, who had been
fairly contented before, may have been caused in part by the levying of
quit-rents by Massachusetts, who, on becoming proprietor in place of
Gorges, may have taken this means of reimbursing herself for the £1250
expended; for the records show that she did exercise such rights, and
considered herself as in receipt of a regular income from quit-rents in
her new province.[959]
Footnote 957:
_Cal. State Pap., Col., 1677-80_, p. 224; _Massachusetts Records_,
vol. V, pp. 195, 203.
Footnote 958:
It is difficult to judge public sentiment by petitions, but in 1680 a
petition signed by 136 inhabitants of York, Kittery, and Wells prayed
for release from Massachusetts. Later, what was evidently intended as
a counter-petition from the General Assembly, was signed by 16
burgesses. _Cal. State Pap., Col., 1677-80_, pp. 608, 622. _Cf._
Hutchinson, _History_, vol. I, p. 296.
Footnote 959:
_Massachusetts Records_, vol. V, pp. 451, 326 _f._
To add to the bad odor of New England affairs, the Atherton Land Company
chose this particular juncture to reassert its claim to the Narragansett
country, and that question rose to the surface again, Holden and Greene,
of Rhode Island, making serious complaints before the Crown of the
encroachments of Massachusetts. Although, so far as Connecticut and the
Bay Colony were concerned, the whole question of the King's Province had
been settled a dozen years previously, they had both continued to plague
their smaller neighbor with their claims, and Rhode Island now asked
that the King appoint a “Supreme Court of Judicature” over all the New
England colonies, to settle boundary disputes.[960] Although this was
not done, Massachusetts was told to let the province alone,[961] and the
whole episode could not fail to impress the English government more
forcibly than ever with the necessity of establishing a greater degree
of local royal control. Soon after, the same suggestion of a Supreme
Court was made in the curious case of a Connecticut Indian, who had made
his way to England to complain both of fraud against himself and of the
general treatment of his race by the colonists, against whom, he
claimed, it was impossible to secure justice in the colonial
courts.[962]
Footnote 960:
_Cal. State Pap., Col., 1677-80_, p. 279. _Cf._ the land company's
advertisement for settlers and claims of title, in _R. I. Records_,
vol. III, p. 18.
Footnote 961:
_Cal. State Pap., Col., 1677-80_, p. 309.
Footnote 962:
_Ibid._, p. 340. There is additional reference to this case in _Conn.
Col. Records_, vol. III, pp. 281 _ff._ _Cf._ also the unjust action of
Connecticut toward the Indians the same year, when, in order to
recover £30 damage done by some drunken individual, the colony
confiscated 600 acres of Mohegan lands. _Ibid._, pp. 43 _n._, 56.
In the fall of 1678, the Massachusetts Court finally agreed to
administer the oath of allegiance, and to pass a law against treason;
but beyond that they refused to go.[963] In fact, in their answer to the
Attorney-General regarding their laws, they announced that the laws of
England did “not reach Amerrica,” and that, as the colonies were not
represented in Parliament, they were not subject to the Navigation Acts.
These, however, the Court reënacted, in order, according to their
theory, to give them validity within Massachusetts.[964]
Footnote 963:
_Massachusetts Records_, vol. V, pp. 192, 194.
Footnote 964:
_Ibid._, pp. 200 _f._; _Randolph Papers_, vol. III, p. 60.
The doctrine of no taxation without representation is a natural
deduction from the contract theory, and has as little historical or
philosophical justification as has that of the theoretical contract
itself. It is mere commonplace to dwell on the philosophical weakness of
the doctrine, the brief expression of which was to become the rallying
cry of a continent a century later. From a practical standpoint,
however, it may be pointed out, that what may be called the historical
basis of representation in England in the seventeenth century was quite
different from the numerical basis in the United States to-day, and
that, in the former sense, the inhabitants of Massachusetts were as
fully represented for purposes of taxation as were the vast majority of
the citizens then resident in England, except for the unavoidable
effects of distance alluded to in an earlier chapter.[965] If, on the
other hand, it be claimed that the colony's government had in mind
representation in the modern American sense, then they were acting even
more tyrannically than was England, for they were themselves, without
any legal right to do so under the charter, taxing the four fifths of
the residents of Massachusetts who had no voice in the local government,
save in exactly the same vicarious way in which all the colonists were
represented in Parliament. It may also be noted that we, to-day, deny
such representation, as Massachusetts was now claiming, to our own
citizens resident in our territories and colonies. The theory of direct
representation in Parliament of England's overseas possessions was not a
new one, however, nor was it evolved in America. In the sixteenth
century, Calais had been represented for a short time,[966] while
Barbadoes had declared how “impracticable” it was that they should be
taxed when unrepresented in Parliament, five years before the cry was
raised in New England.[967] Nor was that cry raised solely in the cause
of freedom. The demand, in reality, was, not that there should be no
taxation without representation, but that the members of the
Congregational church should be confirmed in their claim to tax the
entire community without interference from England.
Footnote 965:
The difference in the two methods was then beginning to be understood
and was clearly brought out in a discussion in Carolina in 1685. _Cal.
State Pap., Col., 1685-88_, pp. 12 _f._
Footnote 966:
Maitland, _Constitutional History_, p. 239.
Footnote 967:
_Cal. State Pap., Col., 1669-74_, p. 475. _Cf._, also, _The Groans of
the Plantations_ (London, 1689), p. 23. “Our Masters the Projectors
think they have a great advantage over us, in regard we have none to
represent _us_ in Parliament. 'Tis true, we have not: but we hope we
may have them. It is no disparagement to the Kingdom of Portugall,
rather it is the only thing that looks great; that in that assembly of
their Estates the Deputies of the City of Goa have their place among
their other cities.”
In the letter which the King sent to the colony by its agents, who, on
account of the attention of the government being entirely absorbed with
the Popish Plot, were at last permitted to leave in June, 1679, he again
returned to the question of religion and the suffrage. He insisted upon
toleration for all except Papists, and a property qualification as the
only one necessary for the franchise.[968] He also expressed his
displeasure at the colony's secret purchase of Maine, and directed the
surrender of the title-deeds upon repayment of the price paid. The
colony was also instructed to withdraw all commissions granted for
governing New Hampshire, as the legal right of administration was vested
in the Crown, which was then considering a new establishment there.
Other agents, in place of those now returning, were ordered to be sent
within six months, duly instructed to act in the necessary regulating of
the colony's affairs.[969]
Footnote 968:
_Randolph Papers_, vol. III, pp. 50, 68.
Footnote 969:
_Ibid._, pp. 48 _ff._
Massachusetts persisted in her old tactics, and it was over three years
before she sent the required agents to England. Meanwhile, Randolph,
during his first year as customs officer, had met with no assistance,
and every possible obstruction, in the performance of his duties, so
that not a single ship had been seized for irregular trading.[970] In
the court of February, 1680, the royal instructions were considered, and
during the early part of the year a committee was appointed to revise
the laws, while the New Hampshire commissions were canceled. The colony,
however, proceeded to establish its own government in Maine, under the
presidency of Danforth, despite the King's commands and a local
disturbance at Casco.[971] In two letters to the English Secretary of
State, Bradstreet, who had succeeded Leverett as governor, defended the
purchase of the province, and virtually refused to alter the colony's
practice in the matter of the franchise, except by nominally conceding
that members of the Church of England would not be considered heterodox.
He held out no prospect of agents being sent, alleging the poverty of
the colony and the danger of the “Turkish” pirates, who had captured
several vessels.[972] In reply, the King wrote, in September, insisting
that agents be sent within three months, with sufficient powers to
settle all outstanding questions, and with such evidences of title as
the colony might claim, to the strip of land in dispute with Mason.[973]
Footnote 970:
_Ibid._, vols. III, pp. 60, 70 _ff._, 86, and VI, pp. 99 _ff._; _Cal.
State Pap., Col., 1677-80_, pp. 372 _f._; _Records of the Court of
Assistants of Massachusetts Bay_ (Boston, 1901), vol. I, pp. 149 _f._,
160, 168, 171, 176 _f._, _et passim_.
Footnote 971:
_Massachusetts Records_, vol. V, pp. 268, 263.
In January, 1681, this letter was read at a special meeting of the
General Court, and Stoughton and Samuel Nowell were appointed agents.
Stoughton evidently had no desire to repeat his former experiences, and,
two months later, John Richards, a wealthy Boston merchant, was
appointed in his place.[974] The months went by, however, and the end of
the year found the agents still in America.
Footnote 972:
_Massachusetts Records_, vol. V, pp. 268, 286, 278, 287 _ff._
Footnote 973:
_Randolph Papers_, vol. III, pp. 81 _ff._
Footnote 974:
_Massachusetts Records_, vol. V, pp. 304, 307.
The patience of the English government had now become exhausted. For
twenty years, since the Restoration, that government had been
endeavoring, by every means in its power, to settle the New England
question in a way that would be satisfactory to all the colonists,
regardless of creed, and would, at the same time, permit the maintenance
of the trade-system upon which the Empire was based. Had Massachusetts
at any time been willing to give up her illicit profits, she could very
possibly have saved her charter. The violations of that instrument upon
which final action was taken were as palpable and actual in 1660 as in
1684. Had the English government merely wished to overthrow that of
Massachusetts, it could legally have done so at any time it desired; and
the prompt dispatch of a thousand English troops, at the time of Bacon's
rebellion in Virginia, showed that it was capable of vigorous and
effective action, when it was felt to be necessary. But every evidence
points to the fact that it did not wish to be bothered with the problem
in Massachusetts, or to proceed to strong measures until absolutely
forced to do so by the persistent attitude of the colony, which was
virtually seceding from the Empire.[975] The “New England disease” of
avowed independence and nullification was infecting the rest of the
Empire, and undermining England's prestige both within and without. The
colony's increasing illegal trade was threatening the destruction of the
legitimate business of colonial and home merchants alike, as well as the
Empire's international relations. Although New England's domestic trade
was of slight value to the mother-country, she occupied a strategic
position of first importance in relation to the valuable staple colonies
of the south and the West Indies, and, in case of war with France, it
was essential that England should have some means of official
communication with, and control over, her strongest colony on the
enemy's frontier in America.
Footnote 975:
_Cf._ Beer, _Old Colonial System_, vol. II, pp. 305 _f._
Over two years had now elapsed since Massachusetts had received orders
to send agents, but she had sent none. She was, nevertheless, given one
last chance. At the end of 1681, Randolph, who had been in England
strongly urging _Quo Warranto_ proceedings against the charter, arrived
in Boston bearing a letter from the King. It required that more
assistance be given to Randolph as collector, that the Navigation Acts
be enforced, and that agents be sent within three months, or “wee shall
take such further resolutions as are necessary to preserve our authority
from being neglected.”[976] The letter was much milder than the
situation really warranted, and than the wording of a suggested draft by
the Lords of Trade.[977]
Footnote 976:
_Randolph Papers_, vol. III, pp. 110 _ff._
Footnote 977:
_Cal. State Pap., Col., 1681-85_, pp. 129 _f._ Osgood (_American
Colonies_, vol. III, p. 328) states that this draft accompanied the
King's letter, as does Doyle (_Puritan Colonies_, vol. II, p. 216).
Hutchinson does not mention it in his account, however (_History_,
vol. I, pp. 300 _f._), and it seems to me that this document, which is
undated, is merely the preliminary draft, as its heading indicates, of
the final letter, which is in _Cal. State Pap., Col., 1681-85_, pp.
128 _ff._ The final drafts were often milder in expression than the
preliminary ones.
In February, 1682, the letter was read at a General Court, and, a month
later, Stoughton and Joseph Dudley were elected agents against
considerable opposition. Stoughton again refused to serve, and Richards
was chosen in his place.[978] Although comparatively little is known of
him, it appears that he was strongly opposed to any concessions, whereas
Dudley's more pliant nature and moderate views, influenced perhaps by
ambition to take a leading place under the altered conditions which he
evidently considered inevitable, led him to an early and willing
coöperation with the English government after the blow had fallen.[979]
Over three months more elapsed before the agents sailed, and it was
midsummer when they reached England.[980] Although they carried with
them confidential instructions, and a public defense of the colony, they
were given no powers to treat of anything that might tend to infringe
“the liberties and priviledges” granted by the charter as interpreted by
Massachusetts.[981] It was obvious, therefore, that nothing could come
of the negotiations, and that there was no recourse left to the English
government except to acknowledge the virtual independence of the colony,
or to void its charter.
Footnote 978:
_Massachusetts Records_, vol. V, pp. 333, 346; Hutchinson, _History_,
vol. I, p. 301; _Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll._, Series IV, vol. VIII, p.
494.
Footnote 979:
Randolph's description of Dudley as an opposer of the “faction,” and a
man who “hath his fortune to make,” is well known. _Randolph Papers_,
vol. III, pp. 145, 171, 172. _Cf._ E. Kimball, _Public Life of Joseph
Dudley_ (Harvard Historical Studies, 1911), pp. 1-21.
Footnote 980:
Hutchinson gives the date of sailing as May 31, N. S.; _History_, vol.
I, p. 301.
Footnote 981:
_Massachusetts Records_, vol. V, pp. 346 _ff._
In the answer that the agents made on their arrival, there was little
that was new.[982] When it was pointed out to them that the requirement
for the franchise had been that no religious distinction should be made,
and no qualification be necessary, except that the applicant be a
freeholder, of the Protestant religion, taxable at ten shillings, they
stated that there was no other distinction, and that all contrary laws
had been repealed. As was shown by both the law and the practice of the
colony, this statement was false both in fact and in implication. In
reference to the three-years' delay in complying with the request for
agents, they alleged the danger of the seas, and lack of money, which
latter was soon disproved by their clumsy and unsuccessful attempt to
bribe the Lord Treasurer with £2000, which made them the laughing-stock
of the Court.[983] Their answers in other respects were almost equally
unsatisfactory, and their lack of power having been acknowledged, they
were told that they must secure sufficient authority from the colony or
that the _Quo Warranto_ proceedings would begin.[984]
Footnote 982:
_Cal. State Pap., Col., 1681-85_, pp. 288 _ff._
Footnote 983:
Hutchinson, _History_, vol. I, p. 303; _Cal. State Pap., Col.,
1681-85_, p. 373.
Footnote 984:
_Ibid._, p. 296.
At the end of March, 1683, the General Court sent them additional
instructions, but did not enlarge their powers, except that they were
authorized to “tender” Maine or anything else which “our charter will
not warrant our keeping.” They were to reiterate their statements as to
the franchise, and to consent to nothing which would alter their
“liberties and privileges in matters of religion.”[985] In the last
analysis, it became evident that the one thing the controlling element
in Massachusetts would not yield was its ecclesiastical power.
Footnote 985:
_Massachusetts Records_, vol. V, pp. 390 _f._
The King hesitated no longer. Randolph, however, who carried the notice
of the beginning of _Quo Warranto_ proceedings to Boston, was
authorized, at his own suggestion, to offer to Massachusetts the promise
of a full protection of private interests and property rights, and a
liberal regulation of the charter, if she would voluntarily submit, in
which case the proceedings would be abandoned.[986] The wholesale
“regulation” of charters, as then being conducted by the Stuarts in
England, held out little hope of the colony's securing any such
liberties in a new charter as she possessed in the old; but, on the
other hand, not to yield was to lose all, and, in view of her past
record, she could expect little sympathy from any quarter.
Footnote 986:
_Randolph Papers_, vol. III, pp. 242, 246 _f._
The magistrates were in favor of accepting the offer, but the deputies
refused, and the Court continued deadlocked.[987] It is impossible to
determine what the public opinion was as to the situation. In the annual
election, in spite of a determined effort to defeat him, Bradstreet, who
was a moderate, secured 690 votes, against 631 for Danforth, who
belonged to the radicals.[988] Dudley, indeed, failed of reëlection, but
so, also, did Richards; and the general result seems to represent only a
slight preponderance for the party of no compromise. It must be
remembered also that, owing to the fact that only one fifth of the men
of the colony possessed the franchise, and that they were all church
members, the vote cannot be taken to represent the sentiment of the
colony as a whole, much of the discontented element necessarily not
showing in the returns. Under the circumstances, it is significant that
over one half of the church members seem to have voted for Bradstreet
and compromise, for it is fair to presume that they would include a much
larger proportion of irreconcilables than the unenfranchised body of
non-church members, who would have nothing to gain by fighting England
to a finish, in order to preserve a church of which they were not
members, and a theocratical government which excluded them from power.
Their very legitimate grievance may well have been, indeed, that that
same government, in its effort to preserve privileges for itself which
meant nothing, or worse than nothing, to four fifths of the inhabitants
of the colony, had sacrificed those other privileges which did mean
something to them.
Footnote 987:
_Ibid._, pp. 271 _ff._
Footnote 988:
Hutchinson, _History_, vol. I, p. 306. Doyle (_Puritan Colonies_, vol.
II, p. 222) makes a slip in this connection. He states that only one
freeman in ten cast his vote. As a matter of fact there were not over
1500 freemen (McKinley, _Suffrage_, pp. 334 _f._), so that the 1321
votes cast would seem to indicate great interest in the election,
instead of the lack of it which Doyle suggests.
We need not enter into the legal details of the course by which the
charter was canceled. The _Quo Warranto_ proceedings having proved
abortive, a writ of _Scire Facias_ was entered, and, on October 13,
1684, Massachusetts ceased to be a chartered colony, and found herself
without a single one of the rights to which she had clung so
tenaciously.[989]
Footnote 989:
For the legal proceedings, _vide_ Winsor, _Memorial History_, vol. I,
pp. 378 _f._
There seems to be no question of the technical legality of the
proceedings; but, passing beyond those, there is nothing to regret in
the course pursued by the Crown. The interpretation of the charter by
the church party not only was inconsistent with the terms of that
instrument itself, so that any government built upon it was illegal and
constantly open to attack, but was inconsistent, also, with the
development of liberty itself in its widest sense. If it were, indeed,
true that the charter formed an unalterable constitution, under which
company members alone were able to become enfranchised citizens, then
the power to govern the state could legally have been confined forever
to the two or three dozen “freemen” who alone were called for by the
charter. The pressure had been so great that the number of freemen had
been greatly enlarged, it is true; but, according to the leaders'
interpretation, this had been merely a boon granted out of good-will,
and no additional freemen need ever be admitted. Their number might
again be allowed to shrink, by death or disfranchisement, to the few
required to fill the offices, who would, according to this theory, have
the sole power of all government, including life and death, over the
rest of the thirty-five thousand inhabitants. Although this, of course,
was unlikely, nevertheless, those in control had shown definitely, when
in order to maintain the theocracy they had sacrificed the whole
political structure, rather than abandon their position with reference
to extending the franchise, that nothing but a power so overwhelming as
to be unopposable would have forced them peaceably to do so.
When we speak of liberty in connection with this early struggle with the
home country, we should realize clearly that the party opposed to
England fought to the end to perpetuate religious intolerance, and the
intrenched privilege of a minority to tax an unenfranchised majority
four times as numerous, and for the right to concentrate all political
power in the hands of one religious sect. The clergy, who had wielded an
extraordinary influence in the counsels of this governing minority, had,
in many instances, been men of marked ability and fanatically devoted to
the truth as they saw it. But as leaders, in the highest sense, they had
very largely failed. From the beginning, they had striven to banish from
the colony all ideas not in harmony with their own, and had thus lowered
and impoverished the intellectual life of the community. On nearly every
occasion, they had led in fanning the flames of intolerance and
persecution. Over and over, they had helped to brutalize the natures of
the citizens by calling for the blood of victims to whom the community
would otherwise have shown mercy. One such example was yet to come,
before the colony, disillusioned, was to reject their leadership finally
in civil affairs.
But the present situation must have been of marked effect, when the
people as a whole, non-church members as well as church members, found
that, in the effort to perpetuate the theocracy, every civil right and
safeguard, which they had considered they possessed under the charter,
had been allowed to be taken from them. It is impossible, as we have
said, accurately to gauge the public sentiment of the time from any data
now available.[990] The people, unquestionably, could be trusted to
resist any real efforts from across the water to restrict such liberties
as they were prepared to enjoy. We seem too often to take it for
granted, not only that liberty is something which all men are entitled
to, but that they are at all times ready for it. The story of their
gradually being moulded, so that they are, in an ever-increasing degree,
fit for it, would seem quite as important as that of their struggle to
obtain it.
Footnote 990:
The report of a meeting in Boston, from which non-freemen were
excluded, a vote being then taken after an exhortation from Mather,
cannot be considered as evidence of the sentiment of the community at
large. The very fact that the non-freemen were not allowed to be
present is in itself significant.
It would have been a great misfortune had the Massachusetts of 1684 been
allowed to go her own way, and to strengthen and perpetuate the combined
ecclesiastical and political system for which her leaders had fought. As
it is, the influence remains too strong of her fundamental doctrine
that, in matters in any degree tinged with an ethical value, a minority
has the “divine right” to force its will upon the majority, and to use
the arm of the civil power to enforce its moral views upon the nation.
In the town-meeting and the public school, the founders of
Massachusetts, lay and clerical, had made two contributions of untold
influence to American political life; but it was well for personal
liberty and intellectual freedom, when the real struggle came and
independence was achieved, that it was for a people who had had some
training in religious toleration and political equality, regardless of
class or creed. And, curiously enough, so tangled is the skein of
history, the laws which voiced and fostered those beliefs were due to
one of the most shameless of English kings, and not to the fathers of
the New England commonwealth.
CHAPTER XVI
AN EXPERIMENT IN ADMINISTRATION
In the preceding chapters, we have tried to show the comprehensive
nature of that expansion of Europe which, with ever-accelerating
swiftness, has been in operation since the age of discovery, and to
indicate that, however great an importance any single colony, English or
other, might attribute to itself, its contemporary significance could be
measured relatively only to the interests of that empire of which it
formed a part. For more or less obvious reasons, this great movement of
expansion has usually been treated from the geographical standpoint. We
think, for example, of England acquiring a foothold in the Far East or a
post in Africa, the island of Jamaica or that section of America known
as Virginia, rather than of her adding to her empire spices, slaves,
sugar, or tobacco. Columbus, however, did not sail in search of a new
land, but only of a new way to a market; and throughout the whole of the
earlier expansion of Europe, we shall miss much of its significance,
fail to understand its motives and methods, and misjudge its political
ethics and standards, if we allow ourselves to fall into the way of
thinking in geographical units, with their localized governments,
instead of imperially and in terms of commodities and trade.
In the struggle of nations, not for land, but for materials and markets,
on a world-scale, it has been necessary that each contending empire
should be as economically self-contained, as closely united politically,
and as militarily formidable as possible. Toward the close of the
seventeenth century, the conditions of successful competition were
beginning to stand out in somewhat clearer relief, as a result of the
blind gropings and fortuitous groupings of a century of experiment, in a
world whose economic possibilities had been but little known. In view of
these requirements, and of the way in which the local New England policy
ran counter to them, there is no need to invoke any malignant spirit, or
even any very deeply selfish aim, on the part of the later Stuarts, to
account for their attempt to unify and consolidate the Empire. Their
policy may have been shaped only gradually in their own minds, and, in
any case, could assume tangible form only by overcoming the obstacles of
existing conditions and institutions, and by the use of such instruments
as the times, fate, and their own natures allowed to them. The remainder
of this volume will be occupied with the efforts of themselves and their
successors to bring back the New England colonies into the general life
of the Empire, and to establish those political relations which were to
subsist for another century.
The first opportunity for putting into practice the new policy of
consolidated administration and royal control was offered by New
Hampshire when Massachusetts canceled the commissions of her officials
there, in accordance with the King's orders, in February, 1680.
Unfortunately for the colonists, and for any possible chance of success
for the new order, the question was complicated by the entirely
extraneous one of Mason's title to the land.[991] Technically legal as
that may have been, and not wholly without its points even on the ground
of abstract justice, it was not likely that squatters, who had enjoyed
all the rights of possession for two generations, and who had put their
labor into their property, would be willing to yield, even on nominal
terms, unless forced to do so. Juries would certainly have to be packed
if decisions so inimical to the pocket-books of the colonists were to be
obtained in courts upon the spot; and nothing but ill-feeling and a
travesty of justice could be anticipated, whichever way the verdicts
went; and the King had no intention of spending his hard-won income to
establish Mason's claims by force.
Footnote 991:
The story of the Masonian Proprietors is given by O. G. Hammond, _The
Mason Title and its relations to New Hampshire and Massachusetts_;
American Antiquarian Society, 1916.
Indeed, the royal policy at first was wholly conciliatory. The
government provided consisted of a President and council, appointed by
the King, and a popularly elected assembly, which latter was to make the
laws and levy the taxes, legislation being subject to veto by the
president and council in the colony, and by the King in Council in
England.[992] John Cutt, the first President, and Martyn, Vaughan,
Daniel, Gilman, and Waldron, of the Council, were all prominent men in
the colony; some of them had been officials under Massachusetts. In
fact, under this first royal government in New England, there was but
little change; and the code of laws enacted by the Assembly was
virtually a reënactment of the Massachusetts code, including some of the
characteristic Puritanical criminal legislation already objected to by
the English judges.[993] The laws which were passed confirming the
land-titles of towns and individuals, and providing that, in
controversies over lands, the juries should be “chosen by the freemen of
each town,” were, of course, aimed at the Mason menace, while the method
of selecting juries was inconsistent with English law in the matter.
Footnote 992:
The commission is given in _N. H. Prov. Papers_, vol. I, pp. 373
_ff._, and _Laws of New Hampshire Provincial Period_ (ed. A. S.
Batchellor, 1904), vol. I, pp. 72 _ff._ The government is described in
Osgood, _American Colonies_, vol. III, pp. 337 _f._, and Fry, _New
Hampshire_, pp. 66 _ff._
Footnote 993:
The so-called “Cutt Code” is in _Laws of N. H._, vol. I, pp. 11 _ff._,
and _N. H. Prov. Papers_, vol. I, pp. 382 _ff._
Having foreseen trouble over the land-question, the King had required
Mason to agree not to demand any compensation for his property prior to
June 12, 1680, and to confirm any individual in possession of his title
forever, subject to a quit-rent of not over sixpence in the pound,
reserving for his own disposition only the lands not already taken
up.[994] In December, Mason and his friend Richard Chamberlain, an
English lawyer, who had been appointed Secretary to the province,
arrived in New Hampshire, and, in compliance with royal orders, Mason
was given a seat in the Council.[995] In view, both of the difficulties
which had been experienced, for fifty years, with the colony's neighbor
on the south, and of the fact that the King had appointed local men to
all the government offices, the necessity of having at least one
official who could be relied upon for information was obvious, and
Chamberlain was instructed to transmit regularly reports of matters
transacted in his office.[996]
Footnote 994:
These conditions are given in Cutt's commission.
Footnote 995:
_Cal. State Pap., Col., 1677-80_, pp. 592, 608; _Ibid._, _1681-85_, p.
44; _N. H. Prov. Papers_, vol. I, pp. 420 _f._
Footnote 996:
_Cal. State Pap., Col., 1677-80_, p. 608.
The Council, however, not only made trouble about accepting him as
Secretary, but endeavored to bind him by an oath of secrecy, which would
have prevented the English government from obtaining information as to
events in that part of the Empire, and have brought about the same
absurd and impossible state of affairs, from an administrative
standpoint, which Massachusetts was trying to perpetuate. Indeed, the
attempt to govern the province by local officials broke down all along
the line. Perhaps the least serious of the difficulties was that Mason
was said to have “no more right to land in New Hampshire than Robin
Hood,” and that he was thwarted at every turn. So far as that was
concerned, he had already had but scant encouragement in England, where,
although his claims had to be acknowledged as having possible legal
validity, they seem to have been recognized, by a government anxious to
avoid trouble, as being likely to create a great deal more of it than it
cared to find on its hands. Had the local government shown any
inclination to meet the imperial one half-way in its endeavor to bring
about some sort of administrative connection between the two, and
observance of the Navigation Acts, it is probable that otherwise it
would have been left fairly free, and that the home officials would have
been glad enough to rid themselves of Mason by abandoning him and his
trouble-breeding claims to the local courts.[997] This, however, the
colonists refused to do. Complaints, some of them well-founded, began to
pour in to the authorities in England, not merely in regard to the
treatment of Mason, but as to the loyalty of the province, the
recognition of the King's authority, the character of the laws, the
refusal to observe the Navigation Acts, and other matters, which
indicated that the local government as organized could not cope with the
situation.[998] The Lords of Trade, therefore, reported that it would be
better to reorganize the government and appoint a governor from home,
both as a military and as an administrative measure. Aside from other
questions, there was evident danger in having a disloyal and
disorganized province on the French frontier in America.
Footnote 997:
_Ibid._, _1681-85_, pp. 27, 49 _ff._, 62 _ff._
Footnote 998:
_Cal. State Pap., Col., 1681-85_, pp. 49 _f._, 52 _f._, 138 _f._, 140
_f._
Amply justified as the English government might have been in its
appointment of a home official to the post of governor, its choice of
the individual selected was most unfortunate. It might be said, indeed,
to have been inexcusable, did not the memory of our own happenings
during the reconstruction of the South, for example, after the Civil
War, preclude too free a use of vivid but satisfying adjectives. Edward
Cranfield, however, whose commission was dated May 9, 1682,[999] was,
perhaps, the most sordid and reckless character who ever served the
Crown as a provincial governor, and might have sat as a model to any
“carpet-bagger” of our post-bellum period; and his three years in New
Hampshire are but mildly characterized as “an unbroken record of vulgar
oppression and extortion.”[1000]
Footnote 999:
_N. H. Laws_, vol. I, pp. 48 _ff._ His instructions, in part, are on
pp. 56 _ff._ _Cf._ _N. H. Prov. Papers_, vol. I, pp. 433 _ff._
Footnote 1000:
Osgood, _American Colonies_, vol. III, p. 348.
He had been but a short time in his new office when he began to have
dazzling visions of the wealth to be made by fishing in the troubled
colonial waters. He wrote to Secretary Blathwayt that, if he and his
friend Guinn would further his schemes in England, they should share
equally with himself in the plunder; and there seems good ground for
assuming that Blathwayt consented, and that the disgraceful
administration which followed lasted as long as it did by virtue of the
complicity of the bribed secretary in England.[1001] Cranfield's
astonishingly cool letter asking for a frigate, much as a highway man
might undertake to supply himself with a pistol, on the ground that it
would not only assist His Majesty's affairs, but would let himself and
his accomplices “in to other advantages,” is one of the most
delightfully frank state papers on record. He estimated that the
troubles in Maine might be brought to yield £3000; that, as both parties
to the Narraganset dispute had money, £3000 or £4000 would “not be
felt”; that selling pardons in Boston might yield £10,000; while,
besides other possibilities, the £5000 “collected for the Evangelizing
of Indians” might be “inspected into and regulated”—a suggestion
delicately veiled, but sufficiently obvious. While these enterprises,
fortunately, proved beyond his powers, no amount was too small to
attract him, and he showed an amazing adroitness in turning every
incident of his administration into money for himself, however remote
the possibility of doing so would have seemed to the casual observer.
Footnote 1001:
_Cf._ Cranfield's letters to Blathwayt in _Randolph Papers_, vol. VI,
pp. 124, 138 _ff._, 145. From the last it would seem that Blathwayt's
customary share was a third.
Besides the disreputable deal with Blathwayt, which had probably helped
to procure his appointment, Cranfield had also made one with Mason, by
which the latter agreed to pay him £150 a year, mortgaging the whole
province to him as security.[1002] It was, therefore, to the advantage
of the new Governor to force the people to accede to Mason's demands.
Although on his arrival, he expressed himself as friendly to the
colony,[1003] and had little difficulty with his first Assembly, he fell
out with it in its second session, and dissolved it, determined to rule
without one.[1004] As a result of the feeling over this action, a
disturbance, too insignificant to be called a revolt, was started by one
Edward Gove, who was claimed to be of unsound mind. However, he was
condemned to death by Cranfield, who confiscated his estate,—of which he
promised one third to Blathwayt,—and shipped the offender to England,
where, after a short stay in the Tower, he was released, in part owing
to appeals by Randolph.[1005]
Footnote 1002:
Belknap (_History_, vol. I, p. 153) states that he found the “Mss. in
the files.” I have never seen the paper, but there is a contemporary
reference to it in _N. H. Prov. Papers_, vol. I, p. 517.
Footnote 1003:
_Cal. State Pap., Col., 1681-85_, pp. 312 _f._
Footnote 1004:
_Ibid._, pp. 373 _f._
Footnote 1005:
_Ibid._, pp. 379, 389; _Randolph Papers_, vol. VI, p. 145, and
_passim_; _N. H. Prov. Papers_, vol. I, pp. 458 _ff._
It is needless to follow Cranfield's disreputable course in detail. It
was that of a petty but thoroughly unscrupulous tyrant, who had no
thought for the rights of the people whom he governed, or for the
interests of the Empire, and whose whole mind was concentrated on
picking pockets.[1006] Although the Assembly was twice convened again,
the deadlock between it and the executive was complete. Finally, after
an effort to collect taxes illegally, it became evident that the people
would stand no more, and Cranfield, who, somewhat unnecessarily, seems
to have been in fear of his life, wrote home asking for recall on the
score of his health and the difficult climate.[1007] Meanwhile, however,
the unfortunate inhabitants of the colony had succeeded in getting their
case before the Lords of Trade in England, who at once took
action.[1008] They wrote a sharp letter to Cranfield, demanding
explanations; and upon receipt of his defense, which they did not
consider satisfactory, reported to the King that he had exceeded his
authority, committed illegal acts, and failed to carry out his
instructions.[1009] They also requested that the King allow an immediate
appeal in the case of one Vaughan against Mason, in the matter of his
land-title, and that all proceedings in similar cases be suspended until
His Majesty's decision was known. Unfortunately, Vaughan lost the
appeal, the King deciding in favor of Mason; but at least Cranfield was
removed as governor, and his commission revoked, at the end of
1684.[1010] In order to get rid of the troublesome private claims of
Mason, a plan seems also to have been proposed by the English
government, the following year, by which he was to surrender all his
rights to the Crown in exchange for an annuity and the governorship of
Bermuda, as it was thought the people might more willingly recognize the
claims of the Crown than those of an individual.[1011] Nothing, however,
came of it, and, like a family curse, the Mason claims continued to
plague everyone concerned, including the proprietor himself.
Footnote 1006:
_Cf._ Vaughan's Journal, in _N. H. Prov. Papers_, vol. I, pp. 519
_ff._
Footnote 1007:
_Cal. State Pap., Col., 1681-85_, p. 649; _Randolph Papers_, vol. VI,
p. 150.
Footnote 1008:
_N. H. Prov. Papers_, vol. I, pp. 515, 557; _Cal. State Pap., Col.,
1681-85_, pp. 666 _ff._
Footnote 1009:
_N. H. Prov. Papers_, vol. I, pp. 562 _f._, 569 _ff._, 572; _Cal.
State Pap., Col., 1681-85_, pp. 670, 697 _ff._
Footnote 1010:
_N. H. Prov. Papers_, vol. I, pp. 570 _f._, 574; _Cal. State Pap.,
Col., 1681-85_, p. 739.
Footnote 1011:
_Randolph Papers_, vol. IV, pp. 59 _f._
That at this crisis in New England affairs, when the attempt was being
made to alter the relations of the colonies to the Crown, and to make
sweeping administrative changes, such a man as Cranfield could be chosen
to be the first representative of a royal executive, boded ill for the
practical success of any plans, however statesmanlike they might be in
conception. There would seem to be no room for doubt that his
appointment had been due to corruption and jobbery, which were likely to
be the stumbling-blocks in the way of any real improvement in imperial
government under the Stuarts. The Lords of Trade, indeed, as well as
Randolph, both realized and protested against the dangers of Mason's
claim, legal as it might be, and of the harm to be done by such an
appointee as Cranfield.[1012] Back-stairs intrigues and sordid
schemings, however, were too strong to be overcome in the court of
Charles, nor had there yet developed that powerful tradition of
integrity and honor, which has been so marked a quality in the civil
service of later England, although the foundations of such a tradition
were being laid at this very time by the excellent work being done by a
number of royal officials in other colonies.
Footnote 1012:
_Randolph Papers_, vol. IV, p. 17.
Nor must it be forgotten that there was little or nothing to attract a
man of first-rate ability, of high integrity, or of statesmanlike
quality, in the post of royal governor in the seventeenth century. Owing
to the remoteness of the colonies, their small populations, their lack
of culture and social life, the pettiness of their problems, and the
proneness of their inhabitants to quarrel with any royal official simply
as such, the office of governor could mean only exile, without prestige
or adequate pay, for any man to whom, from ability or position, a public
career was open in England. As for the hungry schools of smaller fish
who swam in their wake, eager to pick up a living in minor officialdom,
it may be said that they were wont to apply all too thoroughly our later
American maxim, “to the victor belong the spoils.” They were of the
universal type, transcending time or party, place or race.
In respect to the higher officials, the new policy of the Stuarts,
which, by the time Cranfield was removed, had become clearly marked,
might indeed, have brought an advantage. None of the New England
colonies—which ranged in population from the four thousand of Rhode
Island or New Hampshire, to perhaps ten times that number in
Massachusetts—could offer a problem, or a legitimate recompense,
sufficient to attract an able man as governor; but a dominion extending
from Virginia to New France, impossible as it was for other reasons,
might have done so. Nor were there less apparent advantages to be gained
from the administrative point of view, in a dominion which should
embrace all New England, such as was now being planned. After the fall
of the Massachusetts charter, and the dismissal of Cranfield, there were
seven jurisdictions in New England, some with settled governments and
some without: Connecticut, the King's Province, Rhode Island, Plymouth,
Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Maine. To provide seven complete sets
of administrative machinery for the seventy thousand persons included in
these seven districts naturally seemed to the government in England to
be not only a waste of money and energy, but likely to interfere with
the best interests of the colonists themselves. The tariff wars, the
constant bickering over boundaries, and the lack of unity in military
affairs, which latter might easily prove fatal when opposed by a
unified, centralized power like France, all seemed to point to a
consolidation of the colonies as being a distinct step forward. New
England, at least, formed a geographical unit, with a population fairly
homogeneous in character; and a general government might be expected to
work with not more friction than had been developed from the absorption
of New Hampshire and Maine by Massachusetts.
Nor was the scheme confined solely to the minds of English Statesmen, or
to Randolph, who had urged it as early as 1681.[1013] Not to mention
others, so staunch an upholder of the old order as Samuel Sewall could
write to Increase Mather, then engaged in trying to obtain a new
charter, after the downfall of Andros, that, on account of the lack of
voluntary cohesion on the part of the colonies in the face of the French
danger, “it seems necessary that in the most convenient way as can be
procured, these lesser Governments be firmly compacted into one.”[1014]
The difficulties in the way of the plan, however, were great. The local
feeling of loyalty, on the part of the colonists, to their particular
colony, and distrust of the others, was amazingly strong in these little
commonwealths, the total population of any one of which was not greater
than that of a town or village of to-day. Although the inhabitants were
all Englishmen, of much the same faith, and engaged in the same
pursuits, the corporate and community life of the various colonies had,
in the short space of two generations, become differentiated to a degree
which is truly astonishing, and which the contemporary English
government may well be forgiven for not having been able to realize.
Moreover, the extent of territory and inadequacy of communication made a
centralized government peculiarly difficult for those governing, and
inconvenient for the governed. Lastly, the want of the right sort of men
for officials, and their probable lack of tact, and of sympathy with the
New Englanders at any time, and, particularly, in this one of
transition, would seem to have doomed the dominion to failure from the
start.
Footnote 1013:
_Randolph Papers_, vol. VI, p. 90.
Footnote 1014:
Sewall, _Letter Book_, vol. I, p. 115.
Fortunately, however, New England was saved, largely by Randolph, from
the presence of a governor who would have been far worse than Cranfield,
in the person of the subsequently notorious Colonel Percy Kirke, who had
been appointed by Charles.[1015] The death of the King made the
commission void; and Randolph's wise and persistent opposition carried
the day, so that James II found other work for the brutal colonel.[1016]
Randolph, indeed, had not hesitated to write that “whoever goes over
Governor with expectation to make his fortunes, will dis-serve his
Majesty, disappoint himself and utterly ruine that Country”; and that
there was “more need of a prudent man to reconcile then of a hot heady,
passionate Souldier to force.”[1017]
Footnote 1015:
_Cal. State Pap., Col., 1681-85_, pp. 718, 731 _f._
Footnote 1016:
Randolph wrote that nothing could be done if the people “be condemned
to that misery to have Coll. Kerk to be their Govr.”; and that he
himself would “rather have 100 lb. a yeare in New Engd. under a quiet
prudent Govr. then 500 lb.” under Kirke. _Randolph Papers_, vol. IV,
pp. 29, 3, 6, 18, 40, 88.
Footnote 1017:
_Randolph Papers_, vol. IV, pp. 16, 18.
In August, 1685, he suggested, in view of the inevitable delay in
settling New England matters, resulting from the death of the King, that
a temporary government be installed; and, a week later, the Lords of
Trade recommended the plan to James.[1018] It had been Randolph's wish,
as well as that of those citizens in the colony who saw that a change
was inevitable, that the governor and other officials, during the
transition period, should, as far as possible, be local men; and to this
the English government agreed, appointing Joseph Dudley as
Governor.[1019] It was well for Massachusetts in this critical time that
some, at least, of her leading men were not fanatically irreconcilable,
and that, in spite of the opposition of the clergy, so able an
administrator as Dudley was willing to take the hated office, and serve
at once both his colony and England.[1020] If the colonists preferred,
as they undoubtedly did, an administration formed from their own
citizens rather than from strangers, then the question before them was
similar to that put by General Lee to those irreconcilables in Virginia,
in 1867, who refused to vote for the Constitutional Convention. “The
question is,” wrote the general, “shall the members of the convention be
selected from the best available men in the State or from the worst?
Shall the machinery of the State government be arranged and set in
motion by the former or by the latter?”[1021] The colonists, indeed,
were given no choice as to the fundamental frame of their government;
but the powers given to the governor and council made the character of
those who held those offices, particularly the former, of vital
importance.
Footnote 1018:
_Cal. State Pap., Col., 1687-88_, pp. 77, 80.
Footnote 1019:
_Randolph Papers_, vols. III, pp. 317, 325, and IV, p. 13.
Footnote 1020:
Sewall, _Diary_, vol. I, p. 139. The old view of Dudley as a traitor,
which was held by the strong defenders of Puritanism and theocracy, is
largely passing. _Cf._ Osgood, _American Colonies_, vol. III, pp. 385
_f._
Footnote 1021:
J. F. Rhodes, _History of the United States_, vol. VI, p. 86.
Dudley's commission, which appointed him Governor of New Hampshire and
the King's Province, as well as of Massachusetts, and was thus the first
constructive step taken toward consolidation, also named the members of
his Council.[1022] With two exceptions, they were all New Englanders,
representative of the several districts, and included such men as the
Bradstreets, father and son, the two Winthrops (Wait and Fitz-John),
Stoughton, Bulkley, Pynchon, and Tyng, although the Bradstreets and
Saltonstall refused to serve.[1023] The exceptions were Mason and
Randolph; and when the latter heard that Mason had been named, he
hurriedly wrote to Sir Robert Southwell, begging that the New Hampshire
proprietor be advised “to moderation” or that he would “putt all in a
ferment.”[1024]
Footnote 1022:
The commission is in _Colonial Society of Massachusetts Publications_,
vol. II, pp. 37 _ff._
Footnote 1023:
_Randolph Papers_, vols. VI, p. 171, and IV, p. 86.
Footnote 1024:
_Ibid._, vol. IV, p. 48.
Although the Dudley government was avowedly temporary, its organization
foreshadowed the more permanent one soon to be provided, with Andros as
head. All executive and judicial power was placed in the hands of the
Governor and Council, except that appeals to England were provided for
in cases involving not less than £300. There was no provision for the
laying of new taxes or for passing laws, and the refusal to allow a
popular assembly was a serious administrative blunder. In spite of the
restricted franchise and the great influence of the clergy and a few
families in the public life of Massachusetts, the representative
assembly was the foundation of her political liberties, actual or
potential; and after being accustomed to it for fifty years, the people
could be counted upon not to submit willingly to a form of
administration in which they were deprived of all voice. Randolph,
Andros, and the Lords of Trade all seem to have been in favor of such an
assembly for purposes of legislation and taxation; and the new
government under Dudley recommended that it be granted.[1025] In spite
of this, however, and of the opinion of the Attorney-General that, even
after the forfeiture of the charter, the inhabitants of Massachusetts
still had the right to be directly represented in the making of their
local laws and levying of taxes, the King refused his consent.[1026]
While the refusal was a stupid error, which was certain to provoke the
people without any material advantage to the imperial organization, it
may be doubted whether, in truth, it was illegal. The whole matter of
the legal position of the residents in the dominions, as compared with
the dwellers in the realm, was an anomalous one. The situation resulting
from the expansion of England was unprovided for in the theory of the
constitution, much as the acquisition of dependencies by the United
States was unforeseen; and it is difficult to prove what legal rights an
Englishman may or may not have carried with him in emigrating beyond
seas in the seventeenth century. Although, largely as a result of the
so-called tyranny of Andros, New Englanders from this time onward began
to praise, and claim rights under, the common law of England, the force
of that law had previously been denied by themselves in statement and
practice.[1027] In similar case, it may be noted, our own Congress has
laid down the principle that constitutional rights do not of themselves
apply to the citizens of dependent territories, but only when expressly
extended by statute.[1028]
Footnote 1025:
_Cal. State Pap., Col., 1685-88_, pp. 81, 87 _f._; _Randolph Papers_,
vol. V, p. 3; “Records of Council Meetings under Dudley,” in _Mass.
Hist. Soc. Proceedings_, Series II, vol. XIII, p. 244 (hereafter cited
as _Dudley Records_).
Footnote 1026:
_Cal. State Pap., Col., 1685-88_, pp. 9, 81, 89.
Footnote 1027:
P. S. Reinsch, _English Common Law in the Early American Colonies_
(Bulletin of the University of Wisconsin, No. 31, 1899), pp. 8, 23.
Footnote 1028:
Willoughby, _Territories and Dependencies_, p. 51.
Randolph arrived with Dudley's commission in May, 1686, and on the 17th
the new government assumed office at a meeting of the General Court. The
members of that body unanimously protested against the legality of
Dudley's commission, but there was no forcible opposition, though, as
Sewall records, there were “many tears shed in prayer and at
parting.”[1029] The actions of the new government showed so much
moderation that Randolph soon began to chafe under restraint, and
complained that “twas still but the Govr & Company,” and that the
Navigation Acts were no more enforced than formerly.[1030] Sewall,
indeed, in his diary, dwells only on such minor imperial events as the
reintroduction of the cross in the ensign (which led him to resign his
commission), the drinking of healths, the desecration of Saturday
evening (considered in New England as part of the Sabbath), the increase
of periwigs, and the holding of services by an Anglican clergyman, in
accordance with the religious toleration insisted upon by the
King.[1031] Randolph, however, who perhaps understood the colonies
better than any other Englishman of the day, probably represented the
feeling more truly when he wrote that the people were dissatisfied for
want of an assembly, and that otherwise their main desires were for a
general pardon, for the confirmation of their land-titles, and for the
legal establishment of Congregationalism.[1032] We also get a glimpse of
the fire smouldering beneath the surface, in the refusal of the Council
to permit Captain St. Loe, Commander of H. M. frigate Dartmouth, to have
a celebration and bonfire ashore, not only, as the Council declared,
because the town was built of wood, but because “the spirits of some
people are so royled and disturbed that inconveniency beyond your
expectation may happen.”[1033]
Footnote 1029:
_Massachusetts Records_, vol. V, p. 516; Sewall, Diary, vol. I, p.
140; _Dudley Records_, p. 237.
Footnote 1030:
_Randolph Papers_, vol. IV, pp. 92, 114 _f._, 120 _ff._; _Dudley
Records_, pp. 227 _f._
Footnote 1031:
Sewall, _Diary_, vol. I, pp. 147 _f._, 156, 151, 142.
Footnote 1032:
_Randolph Papers_, vol. IV, p. 118. He was presumably speaking of the
voters.
Footnote 1033:
_Dudley Records_, pp. 270 _f._
With the appointment of Sir Edmund Andros, who arrived in December,
after Dudley had been in office about seven months, the Stuart policy
was advanced another step, and the Dominion of New England was soon to
receive a larger extension. The appointment also marked a distinct
advance in the quality of royal official; for Andros was of a type far
superior to the burglarizing Cranfield or the bureaucratic Randolph. He
had already served with honesty and ability as Governor of New York;
and, as the plans for colonial consolidation called for the eventual
union of that province with New England, his previous service in the
former naturally recommended him for the higher post. It is probable
that he had already been considered, even before the appointment of
Dudley.[1034]
Footnote 1034:
_Randolph Papers_, vol. IV, p. 13.
Although his commission of 1686 added only the small, now unimportant,
colony of Plymouth to the three already combined under Dudley, the plan
for uniting all those north of the Delaware had been definitely
formulated, and, as part of the process of reorganization, steps had
been taken to cancel the charters of Rhode Island and Connecticut.[1035]
After some consideration by the Lords of Trade in the previous year, it
had been determined not to await the organization of a permanent
government before proceeding against the two charter colonies, and
Randolph had brought writs of _Quo Warranto_ against each when he came
over with Dudley's commission.[1036] Before they could be served, the
time for the return of each had expired; but, nevertheless, Randolph
presented both of the “superannuated summons,” as he termed them, and
Rhode Island made an immediate surrender, precluding the necessity of
forcing the matter to a legal issue.[1037] That colony was thereupon
placed under the jurisdiction of Andros.[1038]
Footnote 1035:
The commission of 1686 is printed in _R. I. Records_, vol. III, pp.
212 _ff._; _Colonial Society Massachusetts Publications_, vol. II, pp.
44 _ff._; and _New Hampshire Laws_, vol. I, pp. 146 _ff._ The
instructions of that year are in the latter only, pp. 155 _ff._
Footnote 1036:
_Cal. State Pap., Col., 1685-88_, pp. 65, 67, 77, 87, 173, 182; _Conn.
Col. Records_, vol. III, pp. 347 _ff._, 356 _ff._
Footnote 1037:
_Cal. State Pap., Col., 1685-88_, p. 211; _Randolph Papers_, vols. IV,
pp. 97, 100, and VI, pp. 173, 178; _R. I. Records_, vol. III, pp. 193
_ff._
Footnote 1038:
_Cal. State Pap., Col., 1685-88_, p. 242; _New Hampshire Laws_, vol.
I, p. 168; _Randolph Papers_, vol. IV, p. 134.
Connecticut presented greater difficulties, and, owing to delays, a
second writ of _Quo Warranto_, served by Randolph, also became legally
void before service. Governor Dongan, of New York, who had hopes that
his province, and not Massachusetts, might be made the nucleus around
which the larger administrative unit would be built, was also making
efforts to annex Connecticut, either in whole or in part. Although twice
saved by delay, that colony realized that the tendency of the time
toward consolidation would probably prove too strong for her to remain
permanently isolated.[1039] Not only were her social and religious
affinities far closer with New England than with New York, but so, also,
were her economic ties. After some triangular fencing, therefore, with
Dongan, Randolph, and the home authorities, and the service of a third
writ, the General Court wrote to the English Secretary of State, that,
though the colony would prefer to remain independent, yet, if the King's
pleasure were otherwise, she would rather be placed under the
administration of Andros than joined with any other province.[1040] This
was taken to mean acceptance of the royal wishes, the _Quo Warranto_
proceedings were dropped, and Andros was ordered to add Connecticut to
the Dominion, which, six months later, was extended to embrace New York
and the two Jerseys.[1041]
Footnote 1039:
_N. Y. Col. Docts._, vol. III, pp. 385 _ff._; _Conn. Col. Records_,
vol. III, pp. 366 _f._; _Randolph Papers_, vol. IV, p. 78.
Footnote 1040:
_Conn. Col. Records_, vol. III, pp. 377 _f._
Footnote 1041:
_Ibid._, pp. 379 _ff._; _New Hampshire Laws_, vol. I, pp. 171 _ff._;
_Cal. State Pap., Col., 1681-85_, pp. 382, 387, 463, 472.
The difficulties involved in attempting to administer so vast a
territory, possessed of wholly inadequate means of communication, and
embracing such a variety of social, religious, and economic communities,
were virtually insuperable in the seventeenth century. Difficult as the
task would have been in any case, it was rendered hopeless from the
outset by the opposition of all the colonies involved, and by the lack
of properly qualified men to administer the government, as well as by
those faults of the Stuarts which, it was now evident, could be counted
upon to wreck any administrative policy.
The choice of Andros, however, as the man to be entrusted with bringing
about the enormous changes incident to the new policy, while not
altogether happy, was probably as good a one as the circumstances of the
case allowed. The task of making the new government successful from the
standpoint of the King, and acceptable to the inhabitants, was beyond
the power of any man; and under James few were available for foreign
administrative posts who would be likely to be sympathetically inclined
toward the peculiarities of New Englanders. In an exceedingly difficult
position, with his choice of subordinates mainly limited to greedy
place-seekers from home and honestly disaffected colonials, Andros seems
to have carried out his orders with loyalty and probity, though not
always with tact or discretion.[1042]
Footnote 1042:
Of the modern scientific historians, Professor Channing is, perhaps,
the one who takes the most unfavorable view of Andros. _History_, vol.
II, pp. 180 _ff._ _Cf._, however, Osgood, _American Colonies_, vol.
III, pp. 394 _ff._, and Kimball, _Dudley_, pp. 43 _f._ The change in
attitude toward Andros, which dates from the publication of the
_Andros Tracts_ in 1868, does not seem to me to be as much invalidated
by the later publication of the _Andros Records_ as Professor Channing
considers.
The powers given to him in his commission and instructions were very
broad, and, under the conditions existing in the colonies, had he, in
truth, been the “tyrannical Bajazet” which he was proclaimed by the
Reverend Mr. Mather, the story of his brief rule would have been very
different from what it was in reality. As had been the case in the
temporary government of Dudley, there was no provision made for a
popular assembly, although Andros himself had no objection to such a
body, and had even tried to secure one for the inhabitants of New York
when Governor of that colony.[1043] The King, however, had steadily
opposed it in both provinces; and instead, the Governor, “by and with
the advice and consent of” the Council, or the majority of them, was
empowered to make all laws—which, it may be noted, was the exact wording
of the Act passed by Congress in 1804 for the government of Louisiana
after its purchase from France.[1044] The judicial and taxing functions
of the government were bestowed under the same conditions, though the
laws passed were to be approved in England, and appeals were allowed in
cases involving over £300. Although, apparently, the consent of the
Council was required in the above matters, the further power granted the
Governor, to suspend summarily any member of it “from sitting voteing
and Assisting therein,” if he should find “just cause,” gave him
virtually sole authority in the event of disagreement between them and
himself, in any case which he considered just.
Footnote 1043:
_N. Y. Col. Docts._, vol. III, p. 235.
Footnote 1044:
_Colonial Society Massachusetts Publications_, vol. II, p. 46;
_Organic Acts for the Territories of the United States_ (Senate Doct.
No. 148, 56th Congress, 1st Sess.), p. 18.
Such clauses in his instructions as those which required that, except in
cases of extraordinary necessity, he was to act with not less than seven
members of his Council, although his commission placed the limit at
five, and that, further, he was to permit the members to “enjoy freedom
of Debate and Votes in all things,” would seem to indicate that the
English authorities intended the Council to occupy a position of
importance in the scheme of government. But the scheme was one which
could hardly be workable. If the Council were, in reality, a body of
representatives of various sections and parties, it would necessarily
contain a large number of irreconcilables, who would constantly be
outvoted, as the Crown could not be expected to appoint a majority from
the opposition. Had the Governor, as was the case in many of the royal
colonies, possessed the executive power, and an elected assembly the
legislative, then the struggle between them would have taken the course
with which the student of colonial history is so familiar. In the scheme
of government which Andros was supposed to carry out, however, as in
that temporarily provided for Louisiana, the usual rôles of governor and
legislature were reversed, and Andros could quite legitimately consider
himself the sole legislative power, his acts being merely subject to
approval by a body the members of which were, in the first instance, at
least, removable by him. For a half-century, the one policy of the
leaders of Massachusetts, in their effort to balk England's efforts at
control, had been to “avoid or protract,” and it is not likely that that
policy would be suddenly laid aside. The complaints made in general
terms by five of the later accusers of Andros, that in legislation he
did not give sufficient opportunity for debate, that laws were passed
with only a bare quorum, and that, sometimes, the votes were not
counted, cannot, even if true, be taken as very serious charges,
considering his actual powers, and the practical difficulties which
beset him.[1045]
An attempt was, indeed, made to have the Council, which at first
comprised twenty-seven members, roughly representative of the various
parts of the Dominion; and, as other provinces were added, the
membership was enlarged to permit the seating of members from them. Nor
were prominent names wanting in the list, which included Dudley, the two
Winthrops, Stoughton, Hinckley, William Bradford, Arnold, Tyng, Pynchon,
Treat, and Allyn.[1046] Under the circumstances, however, such an
attempt was bound to break down, for important men from other parts of
the Dominion could not be expected to remain permanently in Boston, or
to make frequent and long journeys thither, in order to attend meetings
of a body whose only powers were those of advice and veto, and even
those of none too strong a character. It was entirely natural,
therefore, that, during the brief rule of Andros, the actual conduct of
affairs should tend, more and more, to be guided by his own will and
that of a clique among the councillors, and that attendance at the
meetings should have steadily dwindled.
Footnote 1045:
_Andros Tracts_, vol. I, pp. 140 _ff._
Footnote 1046:
_Andros Records_, in _American Antiquarian Society Proceedings_, N.
S., vol. XIII, pp. 239, 483.
As in the case of New Hampshire, the question of the establishment of a
new administrative machinery was complicated by the distinct one of
titles to the land. In the former case the unhappy complication had been
forced upon the English government, as the question in that province had
not been as to the rights of the Crown against those of its subjects,
but as to the legal claims of one subject against those of others. In
Massachusetts, the case was entirely different; and although the
colonists were technically at fault in not having taken out valid titles
when they might readily have done so, nevertheless, the course of the
English government was both stupid and unjust.
Throughout all the colonies in the early period, there was a general and
rather likeable prejudice against professional lawyers. But,
unfortunately, that prejudice, if indulged in too rashly in civilized
society, is apt to entail some _mauvais quarts d'heures_ on occasion. In
New England, not only was there an almost total absence of professional
lawyers, but there seems to have been very little legal knowledge among
any class in the community. The most marked difference between the
libraries of that section and those of Virginia, in the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries, is the rapidly increasing number of law-books to
be found on the shelves as we journey southward. In New England, not
only was the whole administration of justice in the hands of laymen who
had little or no knowledge of law, but the most important legal
questions with reference to the charter were, in virtually every case,
referred to the clergy, who seem to have been delightfully ignorant of
legal theory and practice, as evidenced both by their decisions and by
the fairly complete absence of any books on the subject in their
studies. They had proved but blind leaders of the blind, and the
insistence upon popular, but erroneous, interpretations of charter
rights, which had necessitated the voiding of that instrument, now
threatened an overwhelming disaster, which might easily have been
averted had the leaders been possessed of better legal training.
As we saw in an earlier chapter, virtually all the land granted in
Massachusetts, as well as in those other New England colonies which
possessed charters, had been bestowed upon towns in their corporate
capacity, and by them granted to individuals. But as the original
company had had no power to create other corporations, the towns, as
such, had no legal existence, and could not, therefore, give valid title
to land. Moreover, a company could not act except under its seal; which
the Massachusetts Company had rarely used in giving title. It may well
be that Randolph was far nearer the truth than usual in his figures,
when he wrote to Blathwayt that he did not believe that “10 men hold of
better Title then Town Grants or Indian Purchase and not Three have a
Grant legally executed.”[1047] Just as the substitution of Exodus,
Deuteronomy, and the discretion of the magistrate for the common law of
England could continue workable only so long as too many alien elements,
which would naturally find such a system “uncongenial and oppressive,”
were not added to the population, so a land-title, as derived by the
Reverend Mr. Higginson from “the Grand Charter in Genesis 1st. and 9th.
Chapters,” from Adam through Noah, could remain satisfactory only until
questioned by purchasers more used to modern forms.[1048] One of the
last acts of Connecticut under her charter, before submitting, had been
to validate land-titles by confirming under seal, to individuals, all
lands previously granted through towns; thus there was no land question
in Connecticut.[1049]
Footnote 1047:
_Randolph Papers_, vol. VI, p. 218.
Footnote 1048:
Reinsch, _English Common Law_, p. 11; _Andros Tracts_, vol. I, p. 88.
Footnote 1049:
_Conn. Col. Records_, vol. III, pp. 177 _f._ _Cf._ C. J. Hoadly,
_Hiding of the Charter_ (Acorn Club, 1900), pp. 14 _f._
But, aside from land in individual possession, there were, in most of
the colonies, very large amounts as yet ungranted at all, or still
possessed and used by towns in the then essential form of “commons” for
wood and pasture. Andros, in his instructions, had been directed to
dispose of all lands “yet undisposed of,” and others “for which Our
Royall Confirmation may be wanting,” for a moderate quit-rent, not under
two shillings and sixpence for every hundred acres. He was also
instructed that no man's “Freehold or Goods” were to “be taken away or
harmed,” but by laws agreeable to those of England.[1050] How far it may
have been the considered policy of the home government to take advantage
of the technical invalidity of title to allotted land, and how far such
attempts as were made may have been due to Andros's own reading, correct
though it was, of his orders, it is impossible to say. That the Crown
came into possession of the unallotted lands could be disputed by no
one. In regard to those that had been improved, the only statesmanlike
action would have been to confirm existing titles without rent. They
were, to a great extent, in the hands of innocent holders, who had
naturally believed that the colony's leaders, lay and clerical, who for
two generations had constituted the government, would have known enough
to give a valid title when they granted land.
Footnote 1050:
_New Hampshire Laws_, vol. I, pp. 159 _f._, 162.
Not only had the people for a long period enjoyed undisturbed
possession, but, to a considerable extent, as we have already pointed
out, New England had been settled by emigrants to whom such possession
of land in fee simple had been the main attraction. In fact, in respect
to land, the New England migration had accomplished what the English
Revolution had failed to do, and had virtually redistributed property.
It has often been said—not quite truly, perhaps—that the English
movement did not succeed because it left the injustices and inequalities
of the English property system untouched. To have done otherwise would
have meant the expropriation of a large and powerful class. In the
wilderness of America, the unlimited fund of free land could be drawn
upon for the purpose, and an economic leveling be accomplished with no
disturbance of existing rights. It was another of the results of the
influence of the frontier, to which, in the story of America, we have to
come back over and over again; for it was in this free and abundant land
that were sown the seeds of democracy and revolution. In New England,
owing in part to social and in part to geographic factors, the
equalizing of economic status had proceeded further, perhaps, than
anywhere else at that time; and the resultant wide distribution of small
holdings would there cause the maximum, both of dissatisfaction with any
policy attacking titles, and of difficulty in enforcing it.
It is, perhaps, only fair to say that the English government may not
have realized the full extent of the popular feeling, and that they
probably thought that the sum asked, which was less than a third of a
penny per acre, would be willingly paid as a means of permanently
validating the imperfect titles. All those residents of Boston
interested in the Narragansett country had voluntarily offered, a year
previously, to pay such a quit-rent as the amount asked later, and the
government of Massachusetts itself had collected quit-rents from its own
citizens in Maine.[1051] The policy of questioning all titles
constituted a typical example of Stuart injustice and ineptitude; and
the few test cases which Andros brought were handled in a way to afford
the greatest degree of apprehension and irritation. The needy and
ill-paid minor officials, upon whom he had to depend in large part for
the details of his administration, immediately scented plunder, and
sought recklessly to profit by it. Although the actual number of cases
in which titles were attacked individually was very small, the theory on
which the cases were based threatened virtually every individual outside
of Connecticut; and it is hard to conceive of any other blunder that the
government could have made which would, so instantly, have arrayed an
entire population in opposition. It is unnecessary to go into the
details of the cases, for there is but one answer to the question, “What
people that had the spirits of Englishmen could endure this?”[1052]
Footnote 1051:
_Cal. State Pap., Col., 1681-85_, pp. 22, 386, 527; _supra_, chap. XV;
_Dudley Records_, p. 276.
Footnote 1052:
_Andros Tracts_, vol. I, p. 87. The cases are given on pp. 88 _ff._
_Cf._ Palmer's defence, _Ibid._, pp. 49 _ff._; Also, Sewall, _Letter
Book_, vol. I, p. 68 _n._; Bond, _Quit-rent System_, pp. 42 _ff._
Cranfield, who had had hopes of getting the governorship of
Massachusetts for himself, had predicted that all might go well there,
“provided that Religion and Tertenancy doe not hinder”; and, at least,
had thus shown himself capable of picking out two of the probable rocks
on which the Dominion policy might founder.[1053] The fact that the new
government was pledged to allow liberty of conscience to all persons
would, in itself, have been sufficiently obnoxious to the clergy and old
church party, even had not the clause been added that the Church of
England was to be especially encouraged.[1054] Andros had been preceded
in his arrival by the Reverend Mr. Ratcliffe, a minister of that church,
and “extraordinary good preacher,”[1055] and Randolph and Mason had
petitioned for the use of one of the three Boston meeting-houses in
which to hold services. This, quite naturally, had been refused, and the
services were being held in the Town-house when the new Governor reached
Boston. Andros repeated the request, and was again refused, the
Town-house continuing to be used until the following March, when the
Governor once more reopened the question. Having no better success than
before, he obtained the key of the South Meeting-house from the sexton,
and forced the issue.[1056] From that time forward, the two
congregations held services there on Sunday mornings, the one following
the other. The sermons of the Puritan divines were of such inordinate
length that even the late Dudley government, though firm in the faith
and New England bred, had to pass a resolution that “the minister that
preaches on Thursday next be prayed from this Court to hasten his Sermon
because of the short days”;[1057] and one Sabbath morning was scarcely
long enough for two clergymen. Moreover, the wholly warranted sense of
injustice felt by the Congregationalists would not tend toward easing a
situation which, in the best of cases, would have been likely to breed
constant ill-feeling. Ecclesiastical quarrels are never lacking in
venom, and the intensity of the friction developed in the present case
was naturally intense. Within the year, however, the Episcopalians made
an effort to build a church of their own, though not without difficulty,
for Sewall, who was one of those who complained of their using the
Meeting-house, refused to sell them land upon which “to set up that
which the People of N. E. came over to avoid.”[1058] But a new church
was at last built, although Andros never worshiped in the King's Chapel,
as it was called, the Revolution occurring before its completion. His
religious sincerity is witnessed by the fact that, when he sailed for
England, virtually a prisoner, he left £30 as a gift toward the
building.[1059]
Footnote 1053:
_Randolph Papers_, vol. VI, p. 123.
Footnote 1054:
_Colonial Society Massachusetts Publications_, vol. II, p. 54; _New
Hampshire Laws_, vol. I, p. 161.
Footnote 1055:
_John Dunton's Letters_, p. 138.
Footnote 1056:
Sewall, _Diary_, vol. I, pp. 141, 162, 171 _f._
Footnote 1057:
_Dudley Records_, p. 277.
Footnote 1058:
Sewall, _Diary_, vol. I, p. 207. Sewall's remark was evidently made to
work off his spleen, for he adds, laconically, “besides 'twas
Entail'd.”
Footnote 1059:
H. W. Foote, _Annals of King's Chapel_ (Boston, 1882), vol. I, p. 90.
Arbitrary and unnecessarily irritating as was the Governor's course in
the matter, it must be confessed to have been a very mild form of
religious tyranny, as compared with that customarily indulged in by the
Puritans themselves. But in various minor ways he gave additional
offense to the clergy and more bigoted laymen, whose Puritanism had at
this time reached its narrowest point. On Christmas Day, the observance
of which was punishable by fine under the colony's laws, Sewall sadly
observes that the “governor goes to the Town-House to Service Forenoon
and Afternoon”; though he takes some heart by noting that “shops open
today generally and persons about their occasions.”[1060] A little
later, Increase Mather writes in his diary, that “this Sabbath
[Saturday] night was greatly profaned by bonfires &c. under pretence of
honor to the King's Coronation.” A sort of secondary Sabbath had been
developed by the clergy about the mid-week “lecture,” and on one of
these days, Mather notes that “Sword playing was this day openly
practised on a Stage in Boston & that immediately after the Lecture, so
the Devil has begun a Lecture in Boston on a Lecture day which was set
up for Christ.”[1061] Happily, the old order was changing, and the
community was gradually loosening the shackles of what, for most, had
become merely a dreary formalism.
Footnote 1060:
Sewall, _Diary_, vol. I, p. 163.
Footnote 1061:
_Mass. Hist. Soc. Proceedings_, Series II, vol. XIII, pp. 410 _f._
In an earlier chapter, we attempted to show what a change was wrought in
the attitude of the Puritans when they passed from opposition to the
government in England to the control of that in the colony. Under
Andros, they now once more found themselves in opposition; and it is
instructive to note in how many particulars they again proclaimed as
tyranny what they had themselves been practising. We have seen how laws
had been passed prohibiting anyone from settling in the colony, or
leaving it without the consent of the rulers. These laws had never been
repealed by the colonial authorities, but it was now complained that
“whereas by constant usage any person might remove out of the countrey
at his pleasure, a Law was made that no man should do so without the
Governours leave.” In view of the continuous refusal of the Puritan
government, when in power, to permit any dissatisfied citizen to go to
England to lodge complaint against their arbitrary acts, of which
refusal many examples have been cited, the complaints against Andros in
the matter are an amusing instance of immediate change of feeling upon
discovering whose ox was being gored. There is nothing to indicate that
Andros had any intention of preventing anyone from carrying an appeal;
but the same writer who complained of the above act goes on to say, with
an entire lack of humor, considering the past history of the colony,
“how should any dissatisfied persons ever obtain liberty to go to
England to complain of their being oppressed by Arbitrary
Governours?”[1062] As a matter of fact, dissatisfied persons now
possessed that liberty for the first time in the history of
Massachusetts.
Footnote 1062:
_Andros Tracts_, vol. I, pp. 80, 142. The act is given in vol. III,
pp. 92 _f._
Under the former régime, the right to organize churches, the regulation
of the schools, and the licensing of printing, had all been kept rigidly
under the control of the government, which meant the representatives of
the minority of the population constituting the Congregational church.
But a loud cry of tyranny was raised when the new government passed an
act that no schools should be kept except “such as shall be allowed,”
and established Dudley as censor of the press, which Hutchinson admits
merely changed its keeper.[1063]
Footnote 1063:
_Andros Records_, pp. 467, 249; Hutchinson, _History_, vol. I, p. 318.
Andros was required by his instructions not to allow unlicensed
printing. _New Hampshire Laws_, vol. I, p. 166.
The order that all records of the former governments should be lodged at
Boston undoubtedly entailed hardship for anyone who wished to examine
them; and the requirement that final action in the probating of wills or
granting letters of administration, in estates of the value of over £50,
must take place in Boston was also an unpractical attempt at
bureaucratic centralization.[1064] Moreover, West, to whom Randolph had
farmed out the office of Secretary, was a peculating subordinate, of
whom Randolph later wrote that he “extorts what fees he pleases, to the
great oppression of the people, and renders the present government
grievous.”[1065] The legal fees, as enacted in 1687, were fair and
moderate,—that for the probate of a will, for example, being ten
shillings,—and there is only questionable evidence for Hutchinson's
statement, inaccurate in another respect, that the usual charge was
fifty shillings.[1066] But there is some evidence that West and some of
the minor officials attempted extortion even after the establishment of
an official scale; and Randolph complained that two of them, West being
one, were insubordinate in Maine, where they “were as arbitrary as the
great Turke,” and were upsetting matters already settled by
Andros.[1067] How far Andros might have been able to organize the
enormous and administratively unwieldy dominion, and rid himself of
unreliable subordinates, had he been given time, cannot be known, as he
was to have only a few months in which to do so after the addition of
the southern provinces.
Footnote 1064:
_Andros Records_, p. 467; _Cal. State Pap., Col., 1689-92_, p. 202;
_Randolph Papers_, vol. VI, p. 271; _Conn. Col. Records_, vol. III,
pp. 423 _f._
Footnote 1065:
_Randolph Papers_, vols. VI, p. 223, and IV, p. 198.
Footnote 1066:
Hutchinson, _History_, vol. I, pp. 320 _f._ For the legal fees under
the Dudley and Andros administrations _vide_ _Dudley Records_, pp.
242, 245, 283; _Andros Records_, pp. 266, 467; _Randolph Papers_, vol.
IV, pp. 147 _ff._
Footnote 1067:
_Ibid._, pp. 226, 228.
Aside from these and other difficulties, his administration would
undoubtedly have been wrecked on the question of taxation, whether the
Revolution had occurred in England or not. He himself, and every one
else apparently, except the King, realized the necessity for an elected
assembly; but it had been denied, and there was, therefore, nothing to
do but to levy the taxes without the direct consent of the people. Under
his commission, Andros, “by and with the advice and consent” of a
majority of his Council, had been given power to levy such taxes as
might be necessary for the support of the government;[1068] and at the
session of March 1, 1687, a general bill, embodying some former ones,
was presented for consideration. It aroused warm discussion over
details, and both the records, and the long subsequent complaint of
Stoughton and others that Andros had “held the Council together
unreasonably a very long time about it,” would indicate that on that
day, at least, there had been no suppression of freedom of debate.[1069]
After a second reading, and a lapse of two days, it was passed on the
third day, _nemine contradicente_, according to the records, though the
complainants, several years later, claimed that the vote had not been
counted, and that many of the councilors had remained silent, under
“great discouragement and discountenance.”[1070]
Footnote 1068:
_Colonial Society Massachusetts Publications_, vol. II, pp. 46 _f._
Footnote 1069:
_Andros Records_, pp. 256; _Andros Tracts_, vol. I, pp. 139 _f._
Footnote 1070:
_Andros Records_, p. 258; _Andros Tracts_, vol. I, p. 140. Part of the
complaint is disproved by the written record.
The attempt to levy the tax met with immediate resistance in Essex
County, and particularly in the town of Ipswich, where the men assembled
in town-meeting refused to elect an assessor. Under the leadership of
John Wise, certain of the inhabitants drew up a protest, stating that
their liberties as Englishmen had been infringed, and refusing to pay
any taxes not levied by an elected assembly.[1071] Twenty-eight were at
once arrested, of whom a number, “appearing more ingenuous and less
culpable,” were promptly released.[1072] Six, however, supposed to be
the ringleaders, were thrown into prison at Boston, a writ of _habeas
corpus_ having been denied.[1073] When they were later brought to trial,
Dudley was the presiding judge, and Wise claimed that the jury was
packed for the occasion. The six were fined, in all, £185, and forced to
pay heavy charges in court fees, while Wise was suspended from his
ministerial functions. The fines were large, but the offense naturally
was serious in the eyes of Andros, who had, perforce, to carry out a
policy not of his own making; and it may not be unfair to recall that,
in the days when the “saddle was upon the Bay mare,” the Puritans had
levied fines of £750 upon Dr. Child and his fewer associates.
Although the towns, as has been stated, had never had legal standing as
corporations, and, with the overthrow of the charter, had ceased to have
a political one, the new government had, nevertheless, allowed them to
continue functioning much as usual. As a result of the attitude of those
in Essex on the tax-matter, however, the Council passed a law limiting
town-meetings to one a year for the purpose of electing local officers,
and thus struck at the very root of popular government in the
colony.[1074]
Footnote 1071:
_Ibid._, pp. 83 _ff._; _Randolph Papers_, vol. IV, pp. 171 _ff._
Footnote 1072:
_Andros Records_, pp. 477 _f._
Footnote 1073:
The right of _habeas corpus_ under the Statute of Charles II, 1679,
did not apply to the colonies. It is questionable whether our rights
to it depend upon that statute or the common law. _Cf._ A. H.
Carpenter, “Habeas Corpus in the Colonies,” _American Historical
Review_, vol. VIII, pp. 19 _f._ In spite of the charges against
Andros, the leaders apparently took the ground, before his arrival,
that the right did not extend to the colony. _Cf._ Mather Papers,
_Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll_., Series IV, vol. VIII, p. 390.
Footnote 1074:
_Andros Records_, p. 494; _Conn. Col. Records_, vol. III, pp. 427
_ff._
The addition of one colony after another, in rapid succession, to the
province for which Andros was responsible, raised administrative
problems of the gravest sort, and had necessitated journeys from Boston
to Rhode Island, Connecticut, and New York. When the last-named had been
placed under his rule, in 1688, he had also been given the main control
over Indian affairs for nearly all English North America, and had also
had to journey to Albany for a conference with the Mohawks. With wholly
inadequate assistance from the greedy office-seekers, who in large part
formed his staff, his position was certainly an unenviable one. It was
not long before the Indian question on the eastern frontier, with the
larger danger of the French lurking in the background, also arose, to
add to the difficulties of the harassed Governor. It was,
unquestionably, a wise policy to unite the Indian affairs of all the
colonies under one head; for the French in the valleys of the St.
Lawrence and the Mississippi now threatened the entire rear of the
English empire on the continent, and in the impending struggle between
the two, the allegiance of the Indian tribes dwelling between them would
become a factor of supreme importance. The disunited English colonies,
quarreling among themselves, and wholly selfish in the various policies
pursued by them in relation to the natives, offered a contrast, palpable
enough to the savages, to the unified control of the French.
Andros had already made one trip to the eastward, in the spring of 1688,
for the purpose of restoring the fort at Pemaquid; and while there, had
despoiled the home of St. Castine, an intruding French trader, who was
living a half-savage life with an assorted selection of Indian wives,
more notable for number than for virtue.[1075] The Governor called
together the sachems of the local tribes, endeavored to bind them to the
English cause, and then had to proceed to New York. While he was
detained there, several minor Indian attacks occurred at New Haven, up
the Connecticut River, and in Maine, resulting in the killing, in all,
of some twenty-six whites.[1076] After a proclamation ordering the
Indians to restore their prisoners and surrender the murderers had
proved unavailing, Andros organized an expedition of several hundred
men, and himself marched with them into Maine, destroying many of the
Indian settlements, and capturing much of their ammunition and
supplies.[1077] Randolph claims, however, what is confirmed by other
documents, that Boston merchants sent the enemy a vessel of forty-two
tons loaded with powder, shot, and food, and so undid much of Andros's
work.[1078]
Footnote 1075:
_Randolph Papers_, vol. IV, pp. 224 _ff._
Footnote 1076:
_Hutchinson Papers_, vol. II, p. 309; _Randolph Papers_, vol. IV, p.
276; _Andros Tracts_, vol. II, p. 207.
Footnote 1077:
_Cal. State Pap., Col., 1685-88_, p. 615; _Andros Tracts_, vol. III,
pp. 21 _f._
Footnote 1078:
_Randolph Papers_, vols. IV, p. 277, and VI, p. 294. This is confirmed
in _Cal. State Pap., Col., 1689-92_, pp. 212, 564, 585. _Cf._, also,
_Andros Tracts_, vol. III, p. 24.
The Indian troubles were made the basis for the spreading of alarming
rumors that Andros was intending to turn the colonies over to France,
and introduce popery, and even that the Mohawks were to be called in to
destroy Boston. All sorts of trumpery evidence was adduced to lend color
to these unfounded libels, to which even Increase Mather did not
hesitate to lend his influence.[1079] While they were utterly without
foundation so far as Andros was concerned, who treated them with
deserved contempt, they fitted in with both the religious and political
fears of Protestant Englishmen in the closing years of the Stuarts.
Moreover, recently published letters of Randolph now show that he, at
least, had begun to trim his sails to meet a possible breeze from Rome,
should James make England a Catholic country; and his suggestion as to
the superior usefulness of Jesuits, as instruments among the Indians,
and even of the possibility of establishing a monastery, may have been
noised abroad.[1080] As we have already noted, the mentality of the
Massachusetts of this period was peculiarly liable to panic and
fantastic fears; and whether or not the leaders believed the fables they
spread, they undoubtedly realized that the readiest way to organize a
revolution against Andros would be by religious prejudice.
Footnote 1079:
_Ibid._, vols. I, pp. 30, 101 _ff._, and II, pp. 50 _f._
Footnote 1080:
_Randolph Papers_, vol. VI, pp. 242 _f._, 246, 251.
It is probable that the fundamental weakness of the King's policy would
have borne its natural fruit, even had there been no Revolution in
England; but that event was to offer the most favorable opportunity for
the minor movement in the colony. Andros was still at Pemaquid when he
received what was probably his first intimation of the coming attempt to
overthrow the government in England, in the form of a proclamation,
which the King ordered to be published, calling upon all subjects to
show their loyalty in view of a threatened invasion from Holland.[1081]
By the end of March, 1689, the Governor was back in Boston, and, ten
days later, young John Winslow arrived from the island of Nevis, with
news of Prince William's landing in England and a copy of his
declaration.[1082] Rumors had also reached Andros, who requested Winslow
to show him the declaration as confirmation. On Winslow's refusal,
Andros told him he was “a saucy fellow,” and had him committed to jail
for overnight, releasing him in the morning, when he showed the paper to
the magistrate.[1083]
Footnote 1081:
_Andros Tracts_, vol. I, p. 75 _n._
Footnote 1082:
_Ibid._, pp. 77 _f._; _Randolph Papers_, vol. IV, p. 277; _N. Y. Col.
Docts._, vol. III, p. 581.
Footnote 1083:
_Andros Tracts_, vols. I, p. 78, and II, p. 209; _Randolph Papers_,
vol. V, p. 57.
Andros's position was a difficult one. Although not in sympathy with
much both in the religious position and in the absolutist tendencies of
his Stuart masters, he had to the full the soldierly qualities of
obedience and loyalty, and on the 16th of April, he wrote to Brockholls
in New York that there was “a general buzzing among the people,” and
warned the magistrates and officers to be on their guard against
probable trouble.[1084]
Footnote 1084:
Cited by Hutchinson, _History_, vol. I, pp. 332 _f._
Two days after, on the 18th, the storm broke in Boston. There is
evidence to indicate that the leaders had laid their plans some time in
advance, and that the staging of the events followed a preconcerted
arrangement, in spite of their feigned ignorance.[1085] Early in the
morning, armed crowds of men and boys proceeded to the centre of the
town from either end, captured Randolph, several of the justices, the
sheriff, a number of the captains, and others of the government, and
locked them in the jail. Andros had already taken refuge in the fort,
while Dudley was absent on Long Island. Bradstreet, Danforth, and others
of the popular leaders were escorted to the Town-house, and at noon a
lengthy, and certainly not hastily prepared, declaration was read to the
assembled people from a balcony.[1086] It was an able, but exceedingly
biased, indictment of the Andros government, while the art of the
demagogue was evident in the weaving in of old slanders as to the
Governor's pretended treachery with the French and Indians, the raking
up of the Popish Plot in England, and a passing tribute to the “Scarlet
Whore.” It ended with flattering references to the Prince of Orange, and
the statement that the persons of “those few Ill men,” who had been the
authors of the colony's misery, had been seized lest they should have
given the province “away to a Forreign Power,” before orders might be
received from the new Parliament. The wording would indicate that it had
been expected that Andros, and perhaps Dudley, who, with Randolph, were
certainly the chief of the “ill men” in popular estimation, would
already have been in custody by the time it was read. Andros's having
taken refuge in the fort probably upset the plans in that respect. The
paper contains every internal evidence, indeed, of having been prepared
some time before, and certainly not after, the mob had begun its work on
that eventful morning. Nevertheless, Winthrop, Bradstreet, Stoughton,
Danforth, and others of the leaders immediately drew up another, stating
that the action of the people was a surprise, of “the first motion
whereof” they had been entirely ignorant, and calling upon Andros to
surrender the government, and deliver up the fort, which otherwise would
be carried by storm.[1087]
Footnote 1085:
For the events of the revolution, _vide_, _Andros Tracts_, vols. I,
pp. 3 _ff._, II, pp. 191 _ff._, and III, pp. 22 _ff._, 145 _ff._;
Hutchinson, _History_, vol. I, pp. 334 _f._; _Randolph Papers_, vol.
IV, pp. 264 _ff._; _Cal. State Pap., Col., 1689-92_, pp. 33, 66 _ff._,
92 _ff._
Footnote 1086:
Given in _Andros Tracts_, vol. I, pp. 11 _ff._
Footnote 1087:
_Andros Tracts_, vols. I, p. 20, and III, p. 145 _n._; Osgood,
_American Colonies_, vol. III, p. 419.
To have held the little fort, or the defenses on Castle Island, for any
length of time, in the face of overwhelming odds, would have been
impossible. To have defended the fort temporarily against attack would
merely have caused useless bloodshed; and, fortunately for the
colonists, Andros, throughout his whole career, had never shown the
bloodthirsty vindictiveness of an Endicott or a Norton. That he was no
coward is shown by the fact that he abandoned the shelter of the fort,
and made his way through the tumultuous streets to a personal conference
with the revolutionary leaders gathered in the council chamber. The
meeting, however, effected no compromise; Andros was made prisoner, and,
through one of his subordinates, but apparently on his orders, the fort
was surrendered. The following day, the Castle also was yielded, and
possession taken of the frigate, though the latter, in order to save the
men's pay, was not required to be formally surrendered. Some days later,
Dudley was located in the Narragansett country, brought to Boston, and
placed in the common jail. In Europe, James II had dropped the Great
Seal of England in the Thames, and fled to France. In America, his
Dominion of New England lay shattered.
[Illustration:
Demand for Surrender of Sir Edmond Andros
Broadside in Massachusetts Archives, State House, Boston
]
CHAPTER XVII
THE NEW ORDER
Just a year before the events of that 18th of April, described at the
close of the last chapter, the Reverend Increase Mather had sailed for
England as representative of “many congregations” in the colony, in an
effort to secure from King James the restoration of an assembly,
confirmation of land-titles, and as many of the old charter privileges
as possible. Although he was more than once received in audience by the
King, before the Revolution brought the negotiations to an abrupt end,
it had been evident for some time that the churches' agent was likely to
gain little more than fair words and memories of royal interviews.[1088]
He had, however, succeeded in making useful friends, one among whom, Sir
Henry Ashurst, became associated with him as agent, and another, Lord
Wharton, introduced him to the Prince of Orange a month before the
coronation, enabling him thus early to present a petition for the
restoration of the charter.[1089]
Footnote 1088:
Mather sailed April 7, 1688. _Andros Tracts_, vols. III, pp. 130
_ff._, and II, pp. 274 _ff._ As the addresses which he carried with
him were unsigned, and as they were merely issued “in the name of many
Congregations,” it is impossible to say whom he really represented
when he sailed.
Footnote 1089:
_Andros Tracts_, vol. III, pp. 146 _f._
Three days after that interview, a circular letter was prepared, to be
sent to all the English colonies, ordering officials then in office to
continue to administer affairs temporarily until the new government
could send different instructions.[1090] Word of this was given to
Mather by Jephson, a cousin of Wharton and an under-secretary to the
King. Mather's alarm, when he heard of it, would seem to indicate that
he either had definite information of the uprising planned in Boston, or
very strong suspicions of what might occur. Prince William had already
been two months in England, and it is incredible that Mather should not
have sent home some word of an event of such overwhelming importance to
the colony as the overthrow of the Stuart monarchy. His later censure of
the colonists for not having promptly resumed the charter government,
instead of temporizing, and his laying the blame for his partial failure
in England upon their not having done so, may also suggest the nature of
the advice sent by him.[1091] He could hardly have expected the new King
to determine offhand the form of government for the Dominion of New
England, then constituting over one half of the empire in America. An
order for a few months' longer continuance of the Andros government,
under the circumstances, would not have been a serious matter, unless
that government had already been overthrown, or was about to be, by the
colonists' acts. However that may be, Mather and Sir William Phips, now
also temporarily in London, petitioned against the dispatch of the
letter to New England, and succeeded in having orders issued instead for
a new governor in place of Andros, and a temporary form of government,
to include a popular assembly.[1092]
Footnote 1090:
_Cal. State Pap., Col., 1689-92_, pp. 4, 7.
Footnote 1091:
_Andros Tracts_, vol. II, p. 291. _Cf._, however, Cotton Mather,
_Diary_, vol. I, p. 138 _n._
Footnote 1092:
_Andros Tracts_, vols. II, p. 274, and III, p. 148; Palfrey,
_History_, vol. III, p. 591 _n._; _Cal. State Pap., Col., 1689-92_,
pp. 6, 8, 11.
News of the revolution at Boston reached London the last week in June,
and soon letters from Randolph and others supplied the English
government with the details of what had occurred.[1093] Toward the end
of July, orders were issued to the provisional government in Boston to
send Andros and the other prisoners to England “forthwith,” on the first
ship bound thither, and that they be treated civilly.[1094] The order
was not received in Massachusetts until November 24, and then was not
complied with.[1095] Although two ships were ready to sail in December,
an embargo was laid upon the vessels, and it was not until the middle of
the next February that the prisoners, after treatment which they
considered unnecessarily harsh, were allowed to start.[1096] It had
probably been felt that their presence in London might interfere with
the success of the colony's agents.
Footnote 1093:
Sewall, _Diary_, vol. I, pp. 261 _f._
Footnote 1094:
_Randolph Papers_, vol. IV, pp. 290 _f._; _Andros Tracts_, vol. III,
p. 111. The list of prisoners is in _Cal. State Pap., Col., 1689-92_,
p. 109.
Footnote 1095:
_Randolph Papers_, vol. V, p. 23.
The leaders who had planned the Boston revolution had undoubtedly
desired the eventual restoration of the old charter, and the return of
the Church and themselves into control of the government. It is probable
also that the majority of the inhabitants wished for the reëstablishment
of charter government, which they looked upon as ensuring themselves
against arbitrary acts by England or English officials. The desires of
the people as a whole, however, were by no means identical with those of
the leaders who formed the temporary government in Boston, or were
acting as agents in England, virtually all of whom were of the narrowest
clerical party. When the fall of the Andros government necessitated the
formation of another, those who had taken the lead on the day of its
overthrow associated twenty-two others with themselves, and formed a
“Council for the safety of the people and conservation of the peace,”
with Bradstreet and Wait Winthrop in the chief offices.[1097] The
decision of a convention, held May 8, as to a new government was not
considered sufficiently decisive, and another was convened, which
included representatives from fifty-four towns. Hutchinson says that
“two days were spent in disputes,” and that “the people without doors
were also much divided in sentiments.” Apparently the representatives of
forty towns voted in favor of resuming the charter, and those of
fourteen against it.[1098] A compromise, not only between those for and
against the charter, but also between those for and against the
expediency of immediate resumption, resulted in the formation of a
government composed of those officials who had been chosen in the last
election under the old charter. Within a few weeks, Plymouth, which had
never had a charter, and Connecticut and Rhode Island, the legal
proceedings against which had never been consummated, also quietly
resumed their former governments.[1099]
Footnote 1096:
_Randolph Papers_, vols. II, pp. 110, 116, 118, 121, V, pp. 20, 26
_ff._, and VI, pp. 325, 331, 334; _Andros Tracts_, vol. I, p. 174;
_Cal. State Pap., Col., 1689-92_, p. 263.
Footnote 1097:
Hutchinson, _History_, vol. I, p. 340.
Footnote 1098:
_Ibid._, p. 344; _Mather Papers_, pp. 708 _f._
Footnote 1099:
_Plymouth Colonial Records_, vol. VI, pp. 206 _ff._; _R. I. Records_,
vol. III, p. 266; _Cal. State Pap., Col., 1689-92_, pp. 34, 62; _Conn.
Col. Records_, vol. III, pp. 250 _ff._, 463 _ff._
Of the points to be considered in granting a new charter for
Massachusetts, or the resumption of the old one, those most likely to be
discussed by the people—outside of the question of land-titles, as to
which the colonists were naturally unanimous—would be the assembly, the
governorship, and the franchise. As to the justice and necessity of a
representative body for legislation and taxation, there was probably no
difference of opinion in the colony. For that matter, as we saw in the
last chapter, there was virtually none in the English government at
home, or among its officials in Massachusetts, with the all-important
exception of the late, but unlamented, monarch. As to the governor, it
was natural that the majority of the people should prefer a chief
magistrate elected by themselves rather than one appointed by England,
though it is not at all certain that they were right. The old
oligarchical government had grossly misused its power, and those who had
a keen recollection of what toleration had meant in the days before
Andros, and who realized the military danger in the old system of small,
disunited, and contentious colonies, can certainly be accused of no lack
of “patriotism” in their preference for a royal governor, to serve as a
check upon the intolerance and military incapacity of the old régime.
Probably the most disputed point, and the one on which the leaders in
control were opposed to the best opinion among the people at large, was
that of the franchise. The question was, whether Massachusetts was to
remain the private preserve of a persecuting religious sect, or was to
be the home of a free people. For half a century, the leaders and the
old church party had resisted, by every means in their power,—by fraud,
trickery, and bloodshed, as well as by legitimate influence,—the
granting of a voice in the government to any individual who could not be
counted upon to uphold the power and authority of the priesthood and the
Church. Little by little, that power and authority had been declining
as, on the one hand, the people had grown in intellectual independence,
and, on the other, the leaders had shown themselves less and less worthy
of their exalted position. But, in England, Mather was exerting every
means to fasten the shackles permanently on the colony by insisting upon
the old Congregational test for the suffrage. In acting thus, he claimed
to be the representative, not of one element, but of the whole people, a
majority of whom would have been disfranchised by his success. What the
people themselves were thinking was shown by the vote at the
town-meeting of Watertown on May 20, 1689, to choose representatives for
the convention. After it had been agreed that they should be instructed
to vote for the resumption of the charter, until further orders were
received from England, it was added, as the only but significant
restriction, that the number of freemen “be inlarged further then have
been the Custom of this Colony formerly.”[1100] In this crisis,
therefore, as has been the case all through our narrative, it is
necessary to distinguish clearly the two separate struggles for
freedom—that between the colony as a whole and England, and that between
the liberal element among the people and the narrow oligarchical
leaders, lay and clerical, of the theocratical party in control.
Footnote 1100:
_Watertown Records_, vol. II, p. 37.
The weakness of the provisional government, due both to the character of
the men composing it, and to the lack of a clear mandate from the
people, was evident from the start. When, for example, Dudley was
released from prison on account of illness, on a bond for £1000, and
confined to his own house, a mob broke into it and carried him back to
jail. The keeper refused to retain him without a warrant, and he was
again confined, in another house. The mob having discovered this, the
excitement became so great, and the control of the government was so
slight, that Bradstreet, the Governor, had to write to Dudley, and
abjectly beg him to reincarcerate himself voluntarily, as otherwise the
authorities could not protect his family.[1101] A fortnight later, a
writer from Boston stated that there was much division among the people,
and that “every man is a Governor.” Another wrote, July 31, 1689, that
“all is confusion”; and, in October, Elizabeth Usher sent word to her
husband that “there is little trade and the ferment is as great as
ever.” A few days later, Governor Bradstreet himself was complaining to
the Lords of Trade of the people who “are busy to weaken the hands of
the Government,” and lamenting the Indian depredations and the empty
treasury.[1102]
Footnote 1101:
_Cal. State Pap., Col., 1689-92_, pp. 111, 120. Bradstreet's letter is
cited from Board of Trade Mss., by Kimball, _Joseph Dudley_, pp. 52
_f._ The _Cal. State Pap._ reference gives the bail as £10,000. I have
followed Kimball in stating it at £1000.
Footnote 1102:
_Cal. State Pap., Col., 1689-92_, pp. 82, 111, 120, 158, 167.
Almost the first act of the provisional government had been to draw off
and disperse many of the troops left by Andros to guard the eastern
province, while the discipline of all was ruined by the dismissing of a
number of officers on religious and political grounds.[1103] The Indians
realized the situation, and, with the arms and ammunition previously
supplied to them by the Boston merchants, descended upon the unhappy
settlers. The fort at Pemaquid, the great importance of which had always
been denied by the colonists because it was urged by Andros, was
captured, owing to the carelessness of the small garrison left there,
and about twenty houses were destroyed by the savages. At Saco, Oyster
River, and other places, houses were burned, and the inhabitants
murdered, and all the horrors of Indian warfare once more came thick
upon the border. The sudden disintegration of the Dominion, the
inability of the separate colonies to act together quickly and
harmoniously, and the lack of authority and military ability, left the
frontier defenseless. In April, 1689, war had been declared between
France and England, and the colonies seemed helpless before the menace
of the French and Indians from the north.
Footnote 1103:
_Andros Tracts_, vol. III, pp. 24 _ff._ The colony's defense against
Andros's charges in this connection is weak and far from truthful.
_Ibid._, pp. 34 _ff._
A few weeks after Massachusetts had disbanded the forces that Andros had
collected, the government attempted to raise more by a draft. The people
questioned both its authority to press men, and its ability to pay them,
and, for the most part, flatly refused either to volunteer or to be
drafted.[1104] A large part of Maine and the country eastward was
overrun, and in October the inhabitants were reported to be flocking
into Boston.[1105] In that month, Bradstreet wrote to the Lords of Trade
that there had been great depredations in Maine, New Hampshire, and even
in Massachusetts, and that the government's efforts to check them had
been of no avail, although a joint force had finally been raised by
Plymouth, Connecticut, and Massachusetts.[1106] Part of this force,
wretchedly clothed and poorly supplied, had been sent eastward under
Colonel Church, the veteran of Philip's War, but had accomplished
little. Indeed, so carelessly was it outfitted and officered, that it
was only when unexpectedly forced into action that the unhappy soldiers
discovered that the ammunition did not fit their guns.
Footnote 1104:
_Cal. State Pap., Col., 1689-92_, pp. 111, 120.
Footnote 1105:
_Ibid._, p. 158.
Footnote 1106:
_Ibid._, p. 167.
In January, 1690, the people of Maine sent a petition to England,
complaining of lack of protection by Massachusetts, begging for help,
and placing their losses at three hundred lives and £40,000 in
goods.[1107] The people of Great Island, New Hampshire, likewise wrote
to the mother-country, complaining of Massachusetts and of the danger
from the French and Indians.[1108] In midwinter, came the frightful
massacres at Schenectady and Salmon Falls; and even Bradstreet and the
Council, on behalf of Massachusetts herself, wrote to the Lords of
Trade, begging for arms and ammunition. The request was granted, and
stores, including two hundred barrels of powder, were ordered shipped to
Boston by the English government, although too late for the purpose that
the colonists had had in mind but had not stated.[1109] In addition, the
English navy was active in providing convoys for all the colonial
shipping, including that of New England.[1110] Such items in the English
records as “the convoys for Virginia, Maryland, Newfoundland and New
England will sail on the 31st. October, and that for Africa on the
20th.,” or a list of ninety merchant ships, forming only one of the
convoyed fleets from America, or the request by Massachusetts for a
royal ship-of-war to guard her coastwise commerce, were the best answers
to such premature “patriots” as the Reverend Joshua Moody, who was
telling the men of Boston that they had no dependence on the Crown, and
that the power of England was of no authority over them.[1111]
Footnote 1107:
_Ibid._, p. 212.
Footnote 1108:
_Ibid._, pp. 262 _f._
Footnote 1109:
_Ibid._, pp. 240, 273, 282 _f._
Footnote 1110:
_Ibid._, pp. 322, 575, 577 _f._, 675.
Footnote 1111:
_Randolph Papers_, vol. VI, p. 295.
The plan which had been conceived, and for which additional resources
were needed, was that of attacking the French, who were the driving
force behind the Indian raids, at their headquarters in Canada, instead
of carrying on an almost impossible system of defensive tactics along a
frontier several hundred miles long. The theory was good; but to put it
in practice would require leaders with military ability, and a
whole-hearted willingness on the part of the separate colonies to sink
their petty jealousies and act together. Unfortunately, both the ability
and the spirit of coöperation were lacking.
Massachusetts, indeed, carried out an easy and successful raid upon
Acadia, whither Sir William Phips sailed from Nantasket, on April 28,
1690, with five ships and several hundred soldiers.[1112] Phips, who is
said to have been one of twenty-six children of a Maine backwoodsman,
and who in his youth was unable to read or write, had acquired wealth
and social position, first, by the not very original method of marrying
a rich widow, and, secondly, by the more unusual one of locating a
sunken treasure-ship with £300,000 sterling, of which his share was a
considerable one. He had already married the widow. When he arrived at
Port Royal, in command of the Massachusetts fleet, he had no difficulty
in securing the surrender of the fort, as his force outnumbered the
garrison ten to one. A succinct diary tells, in admirable style, the
important events of his short sojourn, it being pertinent to note that
the Reverend Joshua Moody was his chaplain. “May, 11. The fort
surrendered. May, 12. Went ashore to search for hidden goods. We cut
down the cross, rifled the church, pulled down the high altar, and broke
their images. May, 13. Kept gathering plunder all day. May, 14. The
inhabitants swore allegiance to King William and Queen Mary.”[1113] All
very satisfying, doubtless, to the Reverend Mr. Moody. But,
unfortunately, the plunder, about the distribution of which some
unpleasant things were later said in Boston, was found to amount to
£3000 less than the cost of the expedition.[1114]
Footnote 1112:
The number of men and vessels varies in different accounts. _Cf._
_Cal. State Pap., Col., 1689-92_, pp. 275 _f._, 376; Parkman,
_Frontenac_, p. 247.
Footnote 1113:
_Cal. State Pap., Col., 1689-92_, pp. 275 _f._
Footnote 1114:
_Ibid._, p. 376.
The easy conquest, however, inspired larger hopes, while the common
danger to all the colonies might have been counted upon to induce them
to lay aside their particularism, and join in a common effort, if
anything could. A meeting of commissioners from Massachusetts, Plymouth,
Connecticut, and New York was held at the latter city, and a combined
attack on Canada was planned.[1115] A land force, made up of troops from
Maryland and the four colonies just mentioned, was to march from Albany
to capture Montreal, while, simultaneously, a fleet from Boston was to
attack Quebec. There seems to have been no realization of the
difficulties of carrying out such a complex joint operation, although,
to the very letter notifying the English government of the grandiose
scheme, had to be added a postscript, to the effect that there were
already “great distractions amongst the Forces.” Everything went wrong.
New York provided only one hundred and fifty of the four hundred men
promised. The hundred and sixty sent from Massachusetts were recalled on
news of the sacking of Casco. Plymouth sent none, and Connecticut less
than her quota; the Indian allies, always uncertain, declined to move,
and there were desertions among the whites. The colonies fell out over
the appointment of a commander, agreement, but not harmony, finally
being attained with the selection of Winthrop.[1116] Although the
unfortunate force, ill-equipped and badly organized, reached Wood Creek,
near the southern end of Lake Champlain, they were unable to advance
farther, and, save for a little skirmishing, the whole expedition was a
costly failure, demonstrating conclusively that, even in the face of
overwhelming danger, the colonies, if left to themselves, were as yet
unable to unite in effective action.
Footnote 1115:
_N. Y. Col. Docts._, vol. III, p. 732.
Footnote 1116:
_Ibid._, vols. IV, p. 194, and III, pp. 727, 752; _Documentary History
of New York_, vol. II, p. 266.
Although the naval expedition against Quebec reached its objective, it
also was unsuccessful, and was a mixture of farce and tragedy. Phips,
who was quite incompetent as the leader of such an undertaking, was put
in chief command, and on August 9 sailed from Boston with a force of
about twenty-two hundred men, in thirty-two vessels of all sorts, mostly
small. For some reason, which does not appear, nine weeks were consumed
in reaching Quebec, of which the last three were spent within a few days
of the city, owing to the lack of a pilot.[1117] The failure of the land
expedition against Montreal, and Phips's delay in ascending the river,
had allowed Frontenac to reach Quebec with reinforcements before the
hostile fleet dropped anchor a little below the town. The conqueror of
Port Royal first tried the effect of a demand for surrender, and sent a
summons “as severe as our four clergymen (who were joined to the Council
of War) could make it.”[1118] Frontenac treated it with contempt, and
refused to send more than a verbal reply, except by his cannon.
Footnote 1117:
Walley's Journal, in Hutchinson, _History_, vol. I, p. 477; _Cal.
State Pap., Col., 1689-92_, p. 384. Most of the contemporary accounts,
French and English, are conveniently brought together by E. Myrand, in
_Sir Wm. Phips devant Québec_; Quebec, 1893.
Footnote 1118:
_Cal. State Pap., Col., 1689-92_, p. 384. The summons is in Mather,
_Magnalia_, vol. I, p. 186. _Cf._ Parkman, _Frontenac_, p. 279 _n._
Phips then called another council of war, and delayed action while seven
hundred more reinforcements arrived at the city. The plan finally
decided upon was a simultaneous attack by land and water. About twelve
hundred men were to be landed, and after crossing a small river, were to
ascend to the rear of the city, which they were to attempt to carry by
assault, while the fleet bombarded it from the front. The land forces,
under Major Walley, were set on shore, where they remained for some
days, unable to advance, and suffering greatly from disease, hunger, and
exposure. The necessary and expected support which the fleet was to
provide them was almost wholly lacking, and neither boats, ammunition,
nor food was supplied in proper quantities. On the other hand, Phips,
with a total disregard of the land expedition with which he was supposed
to be coöperating, fired away all the fleet's scanty store of powder and
shot, expending a considerable portion of it in an unsuccessful effort
to hit a picture of the Holy Family, which had been hung on the
cathedral spire. Nothing having been accomplished by the futile
cannonading, except to provide the Quebec gunners with shot for their
guns, and the English ammunition being exhausted, the incompetent
commander had nothing to do but to order a retreat and return to Boston.
The land forces under Walley had behaved well, but in reëmbarking lost
all semblance of discipline, took to the boats much like a base-ball
crowd to the street cars, and abandoned their cannon.[1119] The
self-flattering belief of democracy that training of any sort is a waste
of time, and that, in military affairs, competent commanders and
disciplined troops can be found at any moment in a crisis, had again
proved a costly fallacy.
Footnote 1119:
Parkman, _Frontenac_, p. 287; Walley's Journal, pp. 470 _ff._; Phips's
own account is in _Cal. State Pap., Col., 1689-92_, p. 45.
In November, Phips reached Boston with the first of his armada; and
other vessels continued to straggle in at intervals until February. Some
of them were never heard of at all. As the colony gradually came to a
realization of the magnitude of the disaster, it was in despair, as it
well might be. Few men had fallen in fighting, but, owing to the
incompetence and thoughtlessness of the leaders, both civil and
military, the mortality had been great. The lack of clothes and food,
the cold, smallpox, fever, and exposure had killed men by scores. The
loss was estimated as high as a thousand, and certainly ran into many
hundreds.[1120] Moreover, the government, with an empty treasury, had
recklessly financed the expedition by promises to pay, expecting to be
reimbursed from the anticipated plunder. There was no plunder, and the
colossal failure had cost £50,000.[1121] A Boston merchant wrote to a
correspondent in London that, since assuming office, the new government
had involved the colony to the extent of, possibly, £200,000, and that
it was almost “run aground.”[1122]
Footnote 1120:
_Ibid._, pp. 376 _f._, 385, 369, 387.
Footnote 1121:
_Cal. State Pap., Col., 1689-92_, pp. 377, 369; Parkman, _Frontenac_,
p. 297; _Andros Tracts_, vol. II, p. 238.
Footnote 1122:
_Cal. State Pap., Col., 1689-92_, p. 377.
Virtually bankrupt, and with the discharged soldiers and other creditors
clamoring for their pay, the government took the first step on the road
to paper money, which was later to cost it dear. The debts were ordered
paid with certificates receivable for taxes, ranging in denomination
from two shillings to ten pounds.[1123] An original issue of £7000 was
increased in a few months to £40,000; and owing to the government's lack
of credit and stability, the notes fell quickly in value, and were soon
at a discount of thirty to fifty per cent.[1124] Taxes rose to formerly
unheard-of amounts, and the depression both of business and of sentiment
became extreme.[1125] Cotton Mather was said to be satisfied to
attribute all the colony's troubles to the presence of the Episcopalian
congregation worshiping in the King's Chapel; and the Governor and
Council wrote to England, pointing out that the whole disaster must have
been due to God, who had “spit in our faces”—a phrase for a state paper
which darts a vivid light, in several directions, among the colony's
elect.[1126] There were many, however, who were inclined to lay the
blame for the growing ruin of all their affairs in less exalted
quarters. The government did its best to suppress or refute all
criticism, and the press, whose lack of freedom had been so bitterly
complained of only a few months before under Andros, was quickly taken
in hand again, and a stricter censorship than ever established.[1127]
Although nothing could be printed except propaganda in favor of the
provisional government, the increasing discontent of many in all classes
made itself heard, both in the colony and in England.
Footnote 1123:
A. McF. Davis, _Currency and Banking in the Province of Massachusetts
Bay_ (New York, 1900), vol. I, pp. 10 _ff._
Footnote 1124:
Davis, _Currency_, vol. I, pp. 16 _f._; _Cal. State Pap., Col.,
1689-92_, p. 377.
Footnote 1125:
_Ibid._, pp. 385, 387, 399.
Footnote 1126:
_Ibid._, p. 369; _Andros Tracts_, vol. III, p. 53.
Footnote 1127:
Duniway, _Freedom of the Press_, pp. 67 _ff._
[Illustration:
Original Draft of Indented Notes of 1690
Massachusetts Archives, State House, Boston
]
Despite all that has been written of the town-meeting, and the general
impression that the average New Englander was almost solely a political
and religious animal, there is little evidence to prove that the
ordinary man in that section cared any more about government than the
ordinary man in Virginia or Maryland. In fact, at a little later period,
the more accurate election returns would seem to indicate that he then
cared even less.[1128] The small minority that ran the government and
the churches was naturally active and vocal. But the fact that four
fifths of the people were reasonably content to join no church, and to
have no voice in the government, certainly does not argue, in that time
and place, any very high degree of political, religious, or intellectual
interest as compared with the rest of America. In the blue haze of that
incense in honor of the colonial New Englanders, lighted by themselves
and tended by their descendants, we are apt, a little absurdly
sometimes, to lose sight of coarse fundamentals. The average man or boy
in the New England of this period probably looked upon the theory that
the main end of the colony's existence was to make the world safe for
the Congregational church, in very much the same way in which those of
us who happened to be in France lately found that the average “doughboy”
regarded his main end there to be making the world safe for democracy.
Footnote 1128:
McKinley, _Suffrage Franchise_, pp. 47, 357. _Cf._, also, L. G. Tyler,
in _William and Mary Quarterly_, vol. XXVI, p. 278.
Such very truthful remarks as that already quoted, made by the residents
of Cape Ann, when they replied to an early whiff of the incense by
saying that their main end had been fish, cannot be too much emphasized.
They are as precious as they are rare. Impersonal love of liberty is
about as common as uncombined oxygen; and so long as the average man
could catch cod, sell whiskey to the Indians, raise crops on land he
felt was his own, or stand at his little shop-counter, he did not much
care—much as, by way of conversation, he might talk—about the governor
in Boston or the king in England. But let him believe that either was
threatening his God-given right to accumulate pine-tree shillings, and
there would be trouble.
This, the Governor and Council, by their evident inability to handle the
situation, were rapidly bringing about. There is nothing unexpected in
the cry now beginning to ascend to England, that “we mightily want a
government,”[1129] or unpatriotic in the attitude of those who did not
desire the complete restoration of the former conditions. In England,
however, that was exactly what the agents, with Mather at their head,
were striving for. Their charges against Andros had entirely broken
down, as had their hopes of a restoration of the old charter.[1130]
Attempts to have it restored by Parliamentary action or by a Writ of
Error had both failed, and the agents' efforts were thereafter directed
to obtaining from the King a new charter, with as favorable terms as
possible.[1131] It may be pointed out that the agents were not
representatives of the colony as a whole, but only of the old church
party, and that the terms which would be considered favorable by them
would be such as would ensure continued control by the theocratic
element.
Footnote 1129:
_Cal. State Pap., Col., 1689-92_, p. 300.
Footnote 1130:
No one would sign even the brief charges submitted, and they were
dismissed. _Andros Tracts_, vols. II, pp. 173 _ff._, I, pp. 150 _ff._,
and III, pp. 19 _ff._
Footnote 1131:
_Andros Tracts_, vols. II, pp. 15 _ff._, 75 _ff._, and III, pp. 149
_ff._
The echoes of the events in the colony that we have been describing had
been sounding in England with increasing loudness and frequency, in the
shape of private letters and formal addresses.[1132] Mather, indeed,
attempted to minimize all complaints from the colony, from whatever
source, and was somewhat reckless in his imputations and disregard of
facts. Thirty-four petitioners of Charlestown, including many
substantial men, he characterized as “a few bankrupt Publicans and
Vagabonds,” “persons brought up and educated in all manner of Debauchery
and Depravation,” “greedy as Hell.”[1133] In his effort to prove the
great prosperity and importance of New England under the old theocratic
government, he grotesquely claimed that, whereas New England had turned
a wilderness into a fruitful field, most of the other colonies had
“turned a fruitful field into a barren wilderness.” The facts were
probably far better known to the Lords of Trade than they were to
Mather, and these showed that the population of the other colonies
outnumbered that of New England more than two to one, while of England's
colonial trade seven eighths was with the “barren wildernesses” of the
sugar and tobacco colonies, and only one ninth with New England's
“fruitful field.”[1134] In that very year, of the two hundred and
twenty-six ships sailing from England to colonial ports, but seven were
bound for New England.[1135]
Footnote 1132:
_Cf._, besides the authorities already cited, _Cal. State Pap., Col.,
1689-92_, pp. 212, 213 (2), 343, 366, 368, 409.
Footnote 1133:
_Andros Tracts_, vol. II, pp. 230, 240 _ff._ A report to the Board of
Trade, in regard to these “vagabond” signers, probably exaggerated on
the other side, puts down two as worth £12,000 each, two at £10,000,
three at £6000, two at £5000, two at £4000, five at £3000, etc. _Cal.
State Pap., Col., 1689-92_, p. 422.
Footnote 1134:
_Andros Tracts_, vol. II, pp. 254 _f._; _A Century of Population_, p.
9, gives 82,000 in New England and 124,000 in the south, in 1690. To
the latter figure must be added those for the island colonies; Beer,
_Old Colonial System_, vol. I, pp. 41 _ff._ The trade figures are for
1697.
Footnote 1135:
Beer, _Old Colonial System_. Of the remainder, 103 went to Virginia
and Maryland, 71 to Barbadoes, 23 to the Leeward Islands, 20 to
Jamaica, one to Bermuda, and one to Pennsylvania.
Mather's anonymous but scarcely veiled threats that the colony would
revolt, if the old theocracy and its charter privileges were not
restored,[1136] failed to impress the government, which, however, had
been seriously endeavoring to meet all the legitimate aspirations of the
colonists. Mather, who had had several interviews with King William, and
had enlisted the sympathy of the Queen,[1137] had little difficulty in
getting a number of proposals altered, when the reasons were pointed
out; but the King and government were both firm in favor of a governor
appointed by England, and a property, not a religious, qualification for
the franchise. Mather bitterly opposed both these suggestions,
particularly that relating to the suffrage, saying he would sooner part
with his life than consent. The ministers of state, however, were
growing somewhat tired of the clergyman's representations and
misrepresentations, and curtly told him that his consent was neither
“expected nor desired”; that he was not a plenipotentiary from a
sovereign state; and that, if it was true, as he claimed, that
Massachusetts would not accept the new charter, then she could “take
what would follow,” for “his Majesty was resolved to settle the
Countrey.”[1138]
Footnote 1136:
_Andros Tracts_, vol. II, pp. 245, 248, 269.
Footnote 1137:
_Ibid._, vols. II, pp. 277 _ff._, and III, pp. 156 _ff._
Footnote 1138:
_Andros Tracts_, vols. II, p. 281, and III, p. 165.
The obvious fact that the colonists were not by any means unanimous in
their desire for the old charter, the genuine wish of the English
government to provide toleration, the long record of delays and
bickerings in the colony's relations with England, and the necessity for
a different organization if the Navigation Acts were to be enforced,
probably all had their influence in shaping the government's policy. Of
still greater immediate import, perhaps, was the military situation.
With the prospect of a life-and-death struggle with France, the
Franco-British frontier in America became a sphere of the highest
military interest and importance; and, aside from previous records or
any preconceived ideas on the part of English statesmen, the colonists
had, within the past year, shown that, if left to themselves, they were
unable properly to safeguard either their own homes or the interests of
the Empire.
As a matter of fact, the new charter, as finally granted, was a far
better document than the one desired by Mather. What he had tried to get
was a constitution for a virtually independent theocratic state, the
fundamental law of which should provide for the perpetual retention of
political power in the hands of a religious sect. What the English
government granted was a charter by which the colony took her natural
place, indeed, in an empire without whose protection she was
defenseless, but which, at the same time, gave to her citizens a degree
of self-government and political freedom which the theocratic group
would never have been willing to concede. The substitution of a moderate
property qualification for the franchise, in place of any other
whatsoever, at once placed the colony abreast of the most liberal
political thought of the day; while local self-government was restored
in the form of a popular assembly. Regardless of the whims or religious
prejudices of any clique in power, and irrespective of his class or
creed, any resident of the colony who had been sufficiently industrious
or fortunate to acquire a freehold estate worth forty shillings per
annum, or real or personal property to the value of forty pounds, could
now claim, as a right, a voice in the government of his
commonwealth.[1139] Thanks to England, the final deathblow had legally
been dealt to the theocracy, and the foundation laid for genuine
self-government and religious toleration in the colony. Those elements
in its future development which we are apt to consider as typically
American had, in fact, in the case of Massachusetts, been forced upon
her leaders, fighting against them to the last ditch, by an English King
who could hardly speak the language of his subjects.
Footnote 1139:
The charter is printed in _Colonial Society Massachusetts
Publications_, vol. II, pp. 7 _ff._
One important aspect of this change in the franchise must not be
overlooked. Under the old religious test, there had been, within the
body of enfranchised voters, no social question. All had possessed the
vote, without distinction between rich and poor. The struggle for the
franchise, therefore, would always have remained a purely religious one
between those within and those without the pale of a particular church.
With the abandonment of the religious test, and the substitution of a
property qualification, the question became a social one, and the way
was opened for that struggle for the democratization of the state and
society which became the dominant motive in the Revolution of a century
later. The colonies could never have united on a question of religion,
or even of trade. The basis had to be so wide as to appeal to the most
numerous class in every colony; and that appeal could only be social,
and was found to lie in the demand for the abolition of privilege and
the extension of democracy.
The new charter of 1691 must be regarded as an honest effort to devise
such a governmental system as should allow to the colonists the greatest
degree of local liberty consistent with the welfare and administrative
necessities of the Empire as a whole, in the light of existing political
theory. It cannot too often be pointed out that the colonial period
_was_ a colonial period, and that the relations subsisting between
England and the colonies were necessarily those subsisting between a
sovereign state and its dependencies. There was no more reason for the
colonist of Massachusetts or Barbadoes to consider himself entirely
independent of English control, than there is for the settler in Alaska
to consider himself wholly independent of the United States to-day. It
is inconsistent to claim that the authority of Congress, in the
twentieth century, should reach to Guam or Nome, but that the authority
of Parliament, in the seventeenth, should have stopped at Land's End. To
find fault with administrative arrangements proper under the above
conditions, merely because they would have been unsuitable had the
subsequently revolting colonies then been the independent states they
later developed into, is to look through the wrong end of the
historian's telescope. If we are to judge the governments provided for
the colonies in comparison with models in later American history, they
should not be compared with the constitutions of our sovereign states,
but with those provided for our own dependent colonies and territories;
and in their broader features, the constitutions granted by Congress to
organized territories reproduce very closely the old royal governments
of the earlier period.
In the first place, we may note that the governor of a territory is not
elected by the people, but is appointed by the president, and is
removable by him, as the Massachusetts charter of 1691 provided that her
governor should be removable by the king. In territories, as in the
colonies, laws passed by the bicameral legislature are subject, not only
to veto by the governor, but also to disallowance by the higher
sovereign power. The review of colonial legislation, to which our
forefathers objected so strongly when colonists, we adopted ourselves
when we, in turn became a “mother-country”; and in some cases, at least,
the laws passed by territorial legislatures were specifically made
subject to review by Congress. It is needless to remind the reader that
the citizens of our territories are no more directly represented in that
body than the colonists were in Parliament, and that taxation without
direct representation is as much a factor in our present state as it was
in the British Empire. In one respect, the Massachusetts charter of
1691, indeed, was more liberal than our territorial governments; for in
Massachusetts the judges were appointed by the governor with the consent
of the council, or upper house of the legislature, while in American
territories they are appointed by the president without the consent of
the inhabitants.[1140]
Footnote 1140:
Willoughby, _Territories and Dependencies_, pp. 54 _ff._; Bryce,
_American Commonwealth_, vol. I, pp. 553 _ff._ The constitutions of
the territories may be found in _Organic Acts_, Senate Document No.
148, 56th Congress, 1st Session. As an example of legislative review,
_cf._ p. 96 (New Mexico): “All the laws passed by the legislative
assembly and governor shall be submitted to the Congress of the United
States, and, if disapproved, shall be null and of no effect.” Under
the act organizing a government in Alaska, in 1884, it was
specifically provided that there should be no legislative assembly.
_Ibid._, p. 206.
To many in the colony, however, the change from the old charter form to
the new seemed a loss of independence. The former governing element felt
that their control had been vastly weakened. The church party
anticipated that the end of all things might be due when the
Congregational church no longer legally controlled the elections. The
presence of a governor and other officials appointed by the Crown, the
review of legislation, the right of appeal, and other evidences of the
colony having become part of a great organization instead of a
practically independent, even if insignificant, little collection of
towns, was unwelcome to those who had had a false idea of the rôle
which, in that time and place, it was possible for them and the colony
to play in the world.
On the other hand, there were very substantial advantages under the new
régime. Although, owing to an obscure and probably not very reputable
intrigue, New Hampshire was given a separate government, the bounds of
the new Massachusetts were extended to include Plymouth, Maine, and the
eastern country as far as Nova Scotia.[1141] Moreover, the colonists had
never really possessed anything like the rights which they had claimed
and exercised under the old charter. The whole system of town
government, for example, had been extra-legal. The infliction of the
death-penalty was illegal, and there was no question that the colonists
had exceeded their rights in taxing the non-freemen. Now all the false
reasoning and sophistries that the settlers had indulged in, in their
efforts to prove the old charter adequate as the basis of a government,
were no longer necessary. Massachusetts at last had, what she had never
possessed before, a written constitution, which clearly set forth her
form of government, and validated, to a very great extent, those
institutions which she had cherished.[1142] The royal officials,
disliked as their presence might be by the irreconcilables, actually and
symbolically brought the colony into relations with the larger life of
the empire. In her thought, her commerce, and her political relations,
New England's largest colony was at last forced out of that position of
defiant isolation which her former leaders had chosen for her, and made
to participate, so far as her provincial position allowed, in the main
currents of the world's activities. The new charter definitely marked
the end of one era and the beginning of another.
Footnote 1141:
For the form of government established in New Hampshire, which became
a royal province, _vide_ Fry, _New Hampshire_, pp. 71 _ff._
Footnote 1142:
_Cf._ Greene, _The Provincial Governor_, pp. 92, 179. For a discussion
of the charter, _vide_ Osgood, _American Colonies_, vol. III, pp. 439
_ff._
This change was more than political and economic. It has been evident
from the foregoing narrative that the power of the clergy had been felt
in every sphere of the colony's life. In the pulpits, in the schools, in
the colleges, in the censorship of the press, in the legislature, even
in the councils of war and the courts of justice, their influence had
been incalculable. The story of the struggle against it, and of its
gradual yielding to defeat, as the people more and more made good their
right to believe as they would and live their lives as they chose, has
occupied many of our pages. The course of development, however, which
was to make Massachusetts the leader of liberal thought among the
states, was a long one, and, in part, it was but a reaction and a
protest against the theological repression of this earlier period.
Although the charter of 1691 had definitely ended the legalized control
of the Congregational church, which was still to maintain a privileged
position until 1812, the organization desperately struggled to retain
its power. The members of the new government, thanks to the efforts of
Mather in England, were nearly all of the clerical party. He had,
indeed, succeeded in having the more important offices filled with the
most fanatical, or the most subservient, of the men in the colony's
public life. His son, the Reverend Cotton Mather, when he heard of the
list of officials, wrote ecstatically in his diary: “The time for Favour
was now come; the sett Time was come! ... all the Councellors of the
Province are of my own Father's Nomination; and my Father-in-law, with
several related unto me, and several Brethren of my own church, are
among them. The Governour of the Province is not my Enemy but one whom I
baptized, namely Sir William Phips, and one of my own Flock, and one of
my dearest Friends.”[1143] He might have added that the savagely bigoted
Stoughton was made Deputy Governor.
Footnote 1143:
Cotton Mather, _Diary_, in _Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll._, Series VII, vol.
VII, p. 148.
At the very time when this effort was being made still to control the
government, in spite of its altered form, events occurred that gave a
staggering blow to that unofficial power which the clergy had been
accustomed to exert as the acknowledged intellectual leaders of the
community. For, in the generation of 1690, the witchcraft frenzy, in
which the clergy took a leading part, brought about the same sort of
anti-clerical reaction that had been a result of the Quaker persecutions
by them in the generation of 1660.
We shall not concern ourselves with the details of the horrible
delusion, which, for the last time in New England, caused the blood of
innocent victims to be shed as a result of theological beliefs. They may
be found amply set forth elsewhere, and concern rather the antiquarian
and the psychologist than the historian.[1144] For us, the interest lies
in their influence upon the intellectual development of the colony, and
the growth of its people.
Footnote 1144:
_Cf._ C. W. Upham, _History of Witchcraft and Salem Village_, Boston,
1867, 2 vols.; Palfrey, _History_, vol. IV, pp. 96 _ff._; the works of
Cotton Mather and Robert Calef, edited by S. G. Drake and published as
_The Witchcraft Delusion in New England_, 3 vols., Roxbury, 1866; I.
Mather, _Remarkable Providences_, London, 1890.
It is quite true that communities in all ages and places have been
occasionally subject to being thrown off their mental balance, and
during the period of frenzy or panic have committed acts of folly or
crime, for which they have subsequently been heartily repentant. But to
state a fact is not to explain it; and to find the underlying cause of
the psychologic disturbance in northeastern Massachusetts in 1692—during
which two hundred persons were accused of being in league with the
devil, one hundred and fifty were imprisoned, and twenty-nine put to
death,—in such influences as the loss of the charter, or the “harsh
aspects of the scenery,” seems to me wholly inadequate, to say the
least.[1145] The scenery of the native American wild “invited to stern
and melancholy musing,” as New England's best-known historian phrases
it, for about a thousand miles north and south of Mr. Mather's study in
Boston, or the Reverend Mr. Parris's cottage in Salem Village, and would
seem to be rather dispersed as the cause of a very localized phenomenon.
Footnote 1145:
Palfrey, _History_, vol. IV, pp. 128 _f._
It is needless to point out that the belief in witchcraft had been
widespread throughout the world; but since the days of King James I,
there had been, among English people, only isolated cases, save during
the years of the Puritan political supremacy in England and the closing
days of that same supremacy in Massachusetts.[1146] Of the more than
seventy cases in England since the Restoration, the great majority had
resulted in acquittals, and in two cases only had the unfortunate
victims been executed.
Footnote 1146:
W. Notestein, _History of Witchcraft in England_ (American Historical
Association, 1911), pp. 400 _ff._
We have seen, in an earlier chapter, the extraordinarily large sphere
accorded to the devil in Puritan theology, and that theology's virtual
repudiation of science by its considering every event in the universe,
from the sun's course in heaven to a spider's falling into the porridge,
as a direct interposition of the divine will. While Boyle, Newton, and
other founders of the new scientific age in England, were tracing the
reign of law, the intellectual leaders of New England were engaged in
gathering together collections of “remarkable providences,” ranging in
interest from the sudden death of a Sabbath-breaker to the evident
marking for destruction, out of a whole library, of a copy of the book
of Common Prayer, by a mouse evidently brought up in the “New England
way.” Of the moral earnestness of such men there is no question, nor of
the abiding stamp which they have left upon the New England
consciousness. Happily, much of the good they did has survived, while
much of the political and intellectual damage they likewise did, and
would have continued to do, had they had their way, has passed.
In 1681, a group of the most eminent of the clergy around Boston
determined upon a large coöperative work, to involve the research of
many authors, and the labor of some years. It was to be a collection of
remarkable providences, of divine judgments, of “thunders as are
unusual, strange apparitions, or whatever else shall happen that is
prodigious, witchcrafts, diabolical possessions, judgments upon noted
sinners,” and the like.[1147] Each clergyman was to make diligent search
among his congregation, and it is obvious what a stimulant such a
wholesale inquiry among the people, by the intellectual leaders of the
community, would be toward arousing interest, and intensifying the
belief, in such matters. A few years later, Increase Mather published
his book on the subject, in which he gave numerous cases of witchcraft
and possession, and recited the signs by which it might be known. It
became the study of the young Cotton Mather, whom in 1686, at the age of
twenty-three, we find wrestling in prayer to cast the devils out of New
England, and undertaking to track down those leagued with them.[1148]
Footnote 1147:
I. Mather, _Remarkable Providences_, Preface.
Footnote 1148:
C. Mather, _Diary_, vol. I, p. 114.
Interest in the subject continued to be stirred up, and in 1688, the
criminal nonsense of some children of Boston, and their accusations
against a washerwoman, resulted in her being denounced as a witch.
Cotton Mather, who had now found the case for which he had been longing,
and in which he might do ghostly battle, took the eldest girl home with
him. She played upon the clergyman's colossal vanity, and, on evidence
which ought not to have shut up a dog, the unfortunate washerwoman was
hanged. Mather now proceeded, by another book and by frenzied sermons,
to arouse the fears and superstitions of the crowd. With one of the most
noted clergymen in Boston doing all he could to foster it, the belief
deepened and spread, and the minds of many, who would not otherwise have
given thought to it, were prepared to believe in that “plot of the Devil
against New England” which Mather preached.
Early in 1692, some children of Salem feigned the symptoms of which they
had heard their elders speak. Two of them belonged to the family of the
local clergyman, Mr. Parris, who now entered on the devil-hunt, with a
fanaticism which knew no bounds, and an honesty which seems to have been
questionable.[1149] To his efforts were added those of the Reverend Mr.
Noyes. Charge after charge was launched against innocent people, and by
the time Phips arrived in the colony as governor, in May, over a hundred
persons were already in prison awaiting trial. Vain of his undeserved
authority, the appointee and pliant tool of Mather, he immediately
appointed an illegal court to try the witchcraft cases, with Stoughton
as presiding judge. In the frenzy of superstitious fanaticism which
followed, justice, legal evidence, even a verdict of the jury, were set
aside, and victim after victim hurried to the gallows, while one, with
horrible tortures lasting several days, was pressed to death under heavy
weights.[1150] The clergy, formally referred to by the Governor and
court for advice, while carefully hedging as to certain particulars,
urged the court on to “speedy and vigorous prosecution”; and Mather
wrote to one of them, extolling “the noble service” of “Encountering the
Wicked Spiritts in the high places of our Air, & of detecting & of
confounding of their confederates.”[1151] The Reverend Mr. Burroughs, of
Wells, who avowed that “there neither are, nor ever were witches,” was
condemned; and although the spectators at his hanging were so moved as
almost to prevent the sentence from being carried out, Mather, who was
witnessing the spectacle from horseback, told the people that the victim
was not an ordained clergyman, and that, in any case, the devil often
appeared as an Angel of Light.[1152]
Footnote 1149:
_Vide_ the remonstrance against him, in Upham, _Witchcraft_, vol. II,
pp. 497 _f._, and Drake, _Witchcraft Delusion_, vol. II, p. 142.
Footnote 1150:
Sewall, _Diary_, vol. I, p. 364.
Footnote 1151:
Hutchinson, _History_, vol. II, pp. 52 _f._; _Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll._,
Series IV, vol. VIII, p. 391.
Footnote 1152:
Sewall, _Diary_, vol. I, p. 363; Drake, _Witchcraft Delusion_, vol.
III, pp. 38 _f._
[Illustration:
Testimonial to the Good Character of Rebecca Nourse, executed as a
Witch
Original in Massachusetts Historical Society
]
Finally, the reaction set in, and the sober sense of the community set
itself against the ravings and goadings of the more fanatical clergy and
church members. The commission of the special court expired with the
assembling of the General Court, and was not renewed. Phips, evidently
fearing criticism from England, wrote to the Earl of Nottingham,
disingenuously laying all the blame for the judicial proceedings on
Stoughton, and quoted Increase Mather and the other divines.[1153]
Courageous laymen, like Thomas Brattle and Robert Calef, both merchants,
exerted their influence against the delusion; and when Mather tried to
start another alarm in Boston, less than a year after the last execution
at Salem, public opinion was arrayed solidly against him. In 1700,
Calef's book in answer to Mather's “Wonders of the Invisible World” was
printed in London and quickly imported into the colony. Though the rage
of the Mathers, father and son, was unbounded, their cause had been
thoroughly discredited, and their day was past. They belonged, in
reality, to the sixteenth century, while Calef, the merchant, defending
the cause of intellectual freedom with no weapon but that of common
sense, belonged to the eighteenth, the dawn of which was now at hand.
Footnote 1153:
_Cal. State Pap., Col., 1693-96_, p. 30.
It was the voice of that century to which the people were now to
hearken. Thenceforth, happily for itself as well as for America, the
church was to be unable to rely either upon political power or upon
blind fanaticism to uphold its leadership—a leadership which now,
perforce, took on a nobler form. The work of the founders was over. In
the extension of their influence throughout the country, wherever we
find groups of settlers from the New England states, we find, indeed the
church, the common-school, and the town-meeting; but it is a liberalized
church, a non-sectarian school, and a town-meeting in which the
citizen's vote is not dependent upon the possession of any peculiar
theological belief.
It was usual, in an earlier and less critical day, to trace all of New
England's greatness, and of her noble contributions to our common
American life, to the same little group of leaders, who were supposed to
have done all because they did much. Life is not so simple as that, and
in the founding of New England, and the development of her liberties, we
must find place for English kings and statesmen, for colonial liberals
and martyrs, as well as for Pilgrim Father and Puritan Priest.
THE END
------------------------------------------------------------------------
INDEX
------------------------------------------------------------------------
INDEX
The abbreviated form “Mass.,” refers to the Governor and Company of
Massachusetts Bay—the “Bay Colony.”
Acadia, restored to France by treaty of St. Germain, 180;
Massachusetts and the contest between Frenchmen for control of, 232,
233;
raid on, by Mass., 438.
And _see_ Port Royal.
Acton, Lord, quoted, 66.
Adventurers, motive of, in Plymouth venture, 93, 94;
losses of, 114, 115;
sell out to Pilgrims, 116.
“Adventurers for New England in America, Company of,” 126 _n._
African Company, 45, 46.
African slave-trade, 280.
Agents, colonial, 297, 298.
Agriculture, in England, 123.
Alden, John, 179.
Alexander, son of Massasoit, 346.
Alexander, Sir W., 180.
Algonquin Indian stock, 24.
Allerton, Isaac, 115, 116, 180.
Allyn, John, 416.
Alva, Duke of, 122.
American strain, first appears in second generation of settlers, 316,
317.
Ames, Azel, 97 _n._
Amsterdam, Scrooby fugitives at, 88, 89;
381.
Andrews, C. M., quoted, 297.
Andros, Sir Edmund, appointed governor of New England, 411, 412;
his original jurisdiction, 412,
and its extension, 412, 413;
difficulties of his administration, insuperable, 413, 414, 426;
broad powers of, 414, 415, 416;
relations with Puritan clergy, 421, 422;
Puritan complaints against, 422, 423;
and the question of taxation, 424, 425 and _n._;
his powers further extended, 426;
his dealings with the Indians, 426, 427;
rumors impugning his loyalty, 427, 429;
his position when William of Orange landed in England, 428;
rising against in Boston, 428, 429;
takes refuge in fort, 429;
made prisoner, 430;
sent to England, 432, 433;
407, 409, 418, 420, 421, 433, 434, 435, 444.
Anne, the (vessel), 106.
Antigua, 120, 367.
Antinomian controversy, 166 and _n._, 167-171;
report of synod on, 170;
206.
Antinomians, Boston, 168, 169.
Appalachian barrier, the, 2, 3, 4, 10, 175.
Appeals, to England denied, 151, 152, 170, 214, 305, 322;
heard by Royal Commissioner, 334;
struggle over question of, 334;
in Dudley administration, 409;
under Andros, 414, 423.
Appleton, Samuel, 356.
Aquidneck, 227, 228.
Argall, Samuel, breaks up French settlements at St. Sauveur, etc., 55,
56;
53.
Armada, the, 30, 32.
Arnold, Richard, 416.
Articles of Confederation. _See_ United Colonies.
Artillery Company of Middlesex, 322.
Arundell, Thomas, 37.
Ashley, Edward, 180.
Ashurst, Sir Henry, 321, 432.
Assembly, 409, 411, 414, 424, 432, 447.
Assistants (Mass.), functions of, 141, 142;
charter violated in regard to, 142;
a majority of voting population, 142;
and Deputies 154, 155;
attempt to usurp power, 160;
negative vote, 212;
189, 211, 373, 393.
Atherton Company, secures mortgage title to Narragansett country, 249,
250;
reasserts claim thereto, 386, 387;
325, 333, 336.
Augusta, Maine, 178, 179.
Aulnay, Charles de Menou, Sieur d', 181, 232, 233, 234.
Austen, Ann, Quaker, 264.
Avenant, C. d', etc., quoted, 287.
Awashunks, squaw-sachem, 342, 343, 358.
Bacon, Lord, 59.
Bacon's rebellion, 390.
Balfour, A. J., quoted, 374.
Ballot, secret, first use of in Mass., 161.
Bancroft, Richard, Archbishop of Canterbury, deprivations of Puritan
clergy under, 71;
and the Puritans, 74.
Baptists, punishment of, 259, 260, 261, 262.
Barbadoes, 8, 119, 120 and _n._, 121, 134, 175, 223 _n._, 302, 303,
307, 362 _n._, 367, 388 and _n._
Barbuda, 119, 120.
Barrington, Sir Thomas, 196.
Barrington, Lady Joan, 125.
Bay Colony. _See_ Massachusetts Bay, Governor and Company of.
Bay Path, 20 and _n._
Beers, Richard, 354.
Bell, Philip, 133, 134.
Bellingham, Richard, Governor of Mass., and Quaker women, 264;
333.
Beothuks (Indians), 24.
Berkshire Hills, 4.
Bermuda, laws against Sabbath-breaking in, 112;
59, 119, 120, 194 _n._, 280, 285, 307, 367, 368, 404.
Bermuda Assembly, 154.
Bermuda Company, 46, 133.
Berwick, England, 300, 301.
Best, Thomas, 56.
Biard, Father, 55 _n._, 56.
Bible, the, God's will revealed to Puritans by, 79;
Puritans alone hold key to, 80;
laws based on interpretation of texts from, 209, 211.
Bible-Commonwealth, Puritans plan to found, in Mass., 142, 143.
Biencourt, Sieur de, 54.
Biggar, H. P., quoted, 29 _n._
Bishop George, 264, 269, 373.
Blackstone, William, 144, 151, 184.
Blathwayt, William and Cranfield, 402, 403, 417.
Block Island, 199, 200.
Bloody Brook, massacre at, 356.
Body of Liberties, 211.
Bombay, 280.
Boston, meeting at, to divide town land, 161;
Antinomian attitude of church at, 168, 169;
elections removed from, 169;
reëlects Vane and others after invalidation of first election, 169;
confederation of colonies discussed at, 224;
merchants of, and the Acadian Expedition, 232, 233;
import duties on goods entering port of, 243;
church at, refuses to join Synod, 255;
Royal Commission at, 331, 333, 334;
dispute over Church of England services at, 420, 421;
observance of Christmas and Sunday in, 422;
merchants of, said to have supplied Indians with ammunition, 427;
revolt against Andros government in, 428-430, 431, 433;
140, 159, 352, 353, 373, 396 _n._, 423, 437.
Boston Bay, 5.
Boswell, Sir W., quoted, 234.
“Bound House,” 182, 324 _n._
Boundaries, natural, influence of, 3;
disputes concerning, 183, 216, 217, 218, 228, 243, 244, 245, 247,
249, 250, 251, 318, 320, 321, 325, 331, 332, 380, 382, 385, 386.
Bourne, Richard, 345.
Boyle, Robert, 297 _n._, 332, 371, 453.
Bradford, William, at Scrooby, 86;
his early history, 86, 87;
chosen Governor of Plymouth, 100;
his _History of Plymouth Plantation_, quoted or referred to, 61 _n._,
89, 90, 92 _n._, 99, 101 _n._, 102, 103, 106, 110, 111, 114, 115,
131, 150, 180, 181, 190, 191, 225;
116, 164, 179, 198, 276, 370, 371, 416.
Bradstreet, Simon, Governor of Mass., replies to King's letter, 389,
390;
significance of his reëlection, 393, 394;
245, 323, 369, 373, 409, 429, 433, 435, 436 and _n._, 437, 442, 444.
Braintree, 247.
Brattle, Thomas, 455.
Breedon, Thomas, 314.
Brend, William, Quaker, cruel punishment of, 269.
Brereton, Sir W., 127 _n._
Brewster, William, his early history and character, 86;
cited before Commissioners of York and Privy Council, 87, 88;
elder of church at Leyden, 89;
91, 92, 99, 116.
Bristol, England, 27, 28.
British Empire, not in existence at accession James I, 279;
extent of, at Restoration, 279, 280;
character of, 280, 281 and #_n._:, 282;
most complete embodiment of Mercantile Theory ideal, 285, 286;
why English colonies should remain within, 289;
Sir E. Morris on, 291;
source of its success, 301;
views of England, and of the colonies, with regard to, 308, 309.
Brockholls, Anthony, 428.
Brooke, Lord, 125, 167, 179, 181, 191, 195, 196, 197.
Brookfield, destroyed by Indians, 354.
Brown, John, settles at New Harbor (Pemaquid), 109.
Browne, John, 128, 132, 133.
Browne, Samuel, 132, 133.
Browne, Sir Thomas, 371.
Brownists, 68.
Brunhes, Jean, quoted, 11.
Brunswick, Maine, Gardiner at, 150, 151.
Bryce, James, Viscount, quoted, 14.
Buckle, Henry T., quoted, 96 _n._
Buet, Hugh, 171.
Bulkley, Peter and Stoughton, agents of Mass. in England, 380 _ff._;
results of their mission, 383, 384;
389, 409.
Bunyan, John, 371.
Burrage, C., 131 _n._
Burrough, Edward, 273.
Burroughs, Rev. George, 455.
Butler, Samuel, 371.
Buzzard's Bay, 5, 6.
Cabot, John, voyages of, 27, 28, 42;
his charter, 34, 299.
Cabot, Sebastian, 27, 32.
Calais, lost to England, 44;
represented in Parliament, 388.
Calef, Robert, 455, 456.
Calvin, John, quoted, 77;
84.
Calvinism, and the Puritans, 77.
Cambridge Platform, adopted by synod (1648), 256;
opposed in General Court, but finally passed (1651), 257.
Campbell, Douglass, 89 _n._
Canada, abortive expedition against, 439-441;
291.
Canonchet, Narragansett sachem, forced to sign humiliating treaty, 358;
capture and death of, 360.
Canonicus, Narragansett sachem, 199, 353.
Cape Ann, fishing settlement on, 108, 109, 125;
5.
Cape Cod, 5, 37, 97, 339.
Cape of Good Hope, 280.
Cape Porpus, 245.
Carlisle, Earl of, 134.
Carolinas, settlement of, 312.
Carr, Sir Robert, member of Royal Commission, 330, 331, 334, 335.
Carrying trade, restrictions on, by England and France, 288;
Holland, England's most serious rival in, 312.
Cartwright, George, member of Royal Commission, 330, 331, 334, 335.
Carver, John, first Governor of Plymouth, death of, 100;
91.
Casco, 439.
Casco Bay, 178, 245.
Castle Island, fortifications on, 159, 322, 331;
429, 430.
Catholics, in England, under Elizabeth, 69 and _n._;
and the English Church, 70, 71;
laws against, suspended in England, 118.
And _see_ Rome.
Cecil, Sir R., 51.
Challons, Henry, sails for New England, 49;
disobeys instructions, 49;
50.
Chamberlain, Richard, Secretary of New Hampshire, 400, 401.
Champlain, Samuel de, settles on St. Croix Island, 38, 39;
explores and maps New England coast, 39, 40;
53 _n._
Champlain, Lake, 4, 312, 440.
Charity, the (vessel), 104, 105.
Charles I, results of his incompetent government, 118;
dissolves Parliament, 134;
139, 157, 159, 162, 215.
Charles II, orders suspension of proceedings against Quakers, 273, 274
and _n._;
his letter confirming Charter of Mass., etc., how complied with, 323,
324;
on claim of Mass. to independence, 336;
orders agents sent to England, 336;
his letter, sent by Randolph, 377, 378,
acted on by General Court, 380, 381;
other letters of, and their effect, 389, 390, 391;
his death, 407;
279, 298, 299, 314, 315, 317, 318, 321, 322, 331, 332, 366, 399, 400.
Charlestown, proposed settlement at, 127;
church at, 143;
140.
Chartered companies, 45 _ff._
Charters, early commercial, 34, 35.
Charters of American colonies. _See_ Colonial charters.
Chatham, Mass., 39.
Chauncey, Rev. Charles, and Quakers, 270.
Chelmsford, Mass., 345.
Chief, Indian, office of, 17.
Child, Robert, case of, 213, 214 and _n._, 253, 298, 305, 315, 425.
Chillingworth, William, 146.
Christ, in Puritan theology, 80, 82.
Christianity, unity of, broken up by development of state churches,
282.
Christison, Wenlock, Quaker, 272, 273.
Church, Benjamin, 348, 361.
Church, the, and the average man, 66, 67;
compulsory attendance at, 172;
penalty of excommunication from, 172;
in New England, process of joining, how made difficult, 253, 254.
And _see_ Clergy.
Church of England, relation of Puritans to, 64 _ff._;
struggle for control of, 71, 76, 77;
abuses in, 74, 75;
low pay of clergy, 74, 75;
Calvinism and, 77;
services of, tabooed in New England, 130;
services of, where held in Boston, 420, 421.
Church-covenant idea, 143.
Church members, number of, in New England, 132;
154, 172, 197, 331, 383, 384, 394, 395.
Church-membership test for franchise in Mass., dissatisfaction with,
253, 254;
growth of more liberal attitude respecting, 262, 263.
And _see_ Franchise.
Churches, new, organization of, restricted, 162.
Clan, the, the Indian's little world, 18.
Clarendon, Earl of, his colonial policy, 311, 312, 313;
Maverick's reports to, 315;
332, 371.
Clark, Mary, Quaker, 268.
Clarke, John, Baptist, his _Ill Newes from New England_, 259, 260;
249, 320.
Cleeve, George, 244.
Clergy, number of, deprived under canons of 1604 and under Puritan
domination, 71;
starvation pay of, 75;
reactionary views of, 194;
in Rhode Island and Connecticut, 195;
attitude of, in Mass., 211;
and the Gorton case, 219, 220;
and Miantanomo, 240, 241;
seek compromise in matter of church-membership, 262, 263,
but strive to enforce conformity in matters of doctrine, 263 _ff._;
failure of, as leaders, explained, 395, 396;
important legal questions referred to, 417;
relations with Andros, 421, 422;
decrease in power of, in Mass., 450, 451;
and the witchcraft delusion, 451, 455.
Climate, of New England, 10 and _n._
Clive, Lord, 54.
Cloth industry, in England, decline in, 123.
Coast-line, value of, 6.
Cobham, Lord, 36.
Coddington, William, commission of, as Governor of Rhode Island,
withdrawn, 249, 250;
161, 169, 185.
Colbert, Jean-Baptiste, and the Mercantile Theory, 285, 288, 289;
his policy abandoned by France, 291;
298.
Colleton, John, 297 _n._
Colonial charters, terms of, 34, 294;
defects of, 366, 367;
compared with Constitutions of U. S. colonies and territories of
to-day, 448, 449 and _n._
Colonial trade, English laws regarding, 287.
Colonies, American, successive grouping of, 2;
beginnings of, their real characters, 33;
terms of charters of, 34;
questions as to status of settlers in, 35, 36;
importance of distance of, from mother-country, 36;
by-products of English commercial activity, 35;
value of, 47;
relation of area to barrier in, 175;
in 1660, 280;
Dutch shut out from carrying trade of, 291;
interests of, neglected or misunderstood in England, 295;
and the administrative confusion in England (1643-1660), 295, 296;
scheme for organization of, following the Restoration, 296, 297;
and the acts for control of trade and shipping, 298;
restriction on shipment of European goods to, 300, 301;
offer no assistance in solution of problem of their relation to
England, 307, 308;
modified view of contest between England and, 364;
problem of, calls for new treatment, 366;
demand of, for assemblies and self-taxation, 367, 368;
why post of royal governor in, was not attractive, 405, 406;
convoys for shipping of, furnished by England, 437, 438.
Colonists, early influence of geographic environment on, 13;
misconceive political system of Indians, 17;
dealings of, with Indians, 14, 24, 25, 34, _ff._;
status of, with respect to England, 292;
failure of imperial theory to take account of human nature in, 301,
302;
non-representation in Parliament not the essential grievance of, 302;
their spirit of resistance to interference considered, 302, 303;
numbers of, in New England, in 1675, 338 and _n._;
missionary efforts of, among Indians, 345, 346;
their land-hunger, 340, 341;
why unprepared for hostilities in 1675, 348, 349;
ignorant of Indian warfare, 350;
and the new form of government (1685), 408, 409;
legal position of, 410.
Colonization, first English attempts at, 33;
mainsprings of, 90;
effect of Mercantile Theory on, 283, 284.
Columbus, Christopher, 26, 44, 398.
Comantine, Fort, 280.
Commerce, supersedes religion as prime influence in politics, etc.,
366.
And _see_ Trade.
Common lands, 153, 418.
Common-school education, in New England and Virginia, 369, 370.
Common schools, 396, 397, 456.
Common-stock theory, in founding of Plymouth, 93 _f._;
in operation of colonies, 113, 114;
failure of, in Plymouth, 113.
Commons. _See_ Common lands.
Conant, Roger, settles at Salem, 125;
127.
Confederation. _See_ United Colonies.
Congregational Church, under new charter of Mass., 451.
Congregationalism in New England, 130, 131, 411.
Connecticut, geographical advantage of, 6;
early settlers in, 120, 189, 190, 191;
franchise in, 172;
opposed to policies of Mass., 183, 184, 186;
Mass. sends expedition to, 187;
constitution of, 192;
“Fundamental Orders” of, 192, 193;
influence of, and of Mass., on development of American thought,
contrasted, 193, 194;
character of emigrants to, 195, 207;
settlements in, after destruction of Pequots, 206 _ff._;
absorbs New Haven, 208, 318-320;
growth of population of, 224;
objects to proposed terms of confederation, 225;
and the Dutch, 236, 237;
controversy over taxation, 242, 243;
disputed boundary line between Mass. and, 243;
treatment of Quakers in, 268, 275;
relation of, to England, 306;
flouts Navigation Acts, 313;
Winthrop obtains liberal charter for, 318;
boundary between Rhode Island and, 320, 321;
population (1675), 338;
and the Pequots, 343;
raising troops in, 351, 355 _n._;
and friendly Indians, 356;
war expenses of, 363;
schools in, 369;
treatment of Indians by, 387 and _n._;
steps to cancel charter of, 412, 413;
added to jurisdiction of Andros, 413;
validates land-titles, 418, 420;
Indian attacks in, 427;
resumes former government (1689), 433, 434;
209, 215, 226, 227, 317, 325, 332, 336, 339, 341, 353, 386, 439.
Connecticut River, 6, 186, 187, 190, 339, 340, 345, 360, 361.
Conservative and liberal groupings in New England, 373, 374.
Cooper, Sir Anthony A., 297 _n._
Cooper, J. Fenimore, 14.
Corbitant (Indian), 101.
Cotton, Rev. John, a follower of Ann Hutchinson, 167;
abjures Antinomianism, 170;
at Boston, 189;
his death, 259;
defends punishment of Baptists, 261;
quoted, 129, 130, 131, 132, 143, 161;
125, 147, 162, 165, 166, 173.
Cotton, John, and Philip's son, 362.
Council Established at Plymouth, etc., granted a charter, 62, 63.
Council for New England, 106, 126, 157.
Council for Plantations, 296, 297, 329.
Council for the Safety of the People, etc., 433.
Country, and town, conflict of economic interests, etc., between, 373,
374.
Covenants of Grace and of Works, 166.
Cradock, Matthew, 128, 138, 151, 157.
Crandall, John, Baptist, 259, 260.
Cranfield, Edward, appointed royal governor of New England, 402;
his character, 402;
dealings with Blathwayt, 402 and _n._, 403 and _n._,
and with Mason, 403;
his course considered, 404 _f._;
removed, 404;
quoted, 420;
406, 407, 411.
Cromwell, Oliver, forces war on Holland, 236, 237 and _n._;
quoted, on liberty of opinion, 275;
125, 137, 209, 287, 296, 298, 369.
Crown, the, and the colonies, 293 _ff._
Cushman, Robert, 91, 94, 95, 97, 102.
Cutt, John, first President of New Hampshire under royal control, 400.
Cuttyhunk, 37.
Damaris Cove, 104, 115.
Dand, John, 214.
Danforth, Thomas, 389, 394, 429.
Daniel, Thomas, 400.
Darley, Henry, 197.
Davenport, Rev. John, founder of New Haven, 206, 207.
Davison, William, 86.
Dawson, S. E., quoted, 27 and _n._
Deer Island, 357.
Deerfield, attacked by Indians, 354, 355, 356.
Delaware River, settlements on, 234, 235, 236.
Democracy, not aimed at in Mayflower Compact, 98;
opposition of Mass. leaders to, 143;
genesis of, in America, 144, 419;
only partial in early town meetings, 154;
in Rhode Island, 186, 195, 248;
in Connecticut, 192, 193, 195;
and Calvinism, 194;
still on trial, 365.
Deputies in General Court, 154.
And _see_ Assistants.
Dermer, Thomas, 60, 61 and _n._
Devil, the, the saving grace of Puritan doctrine, 82.
Dexter, Henry M., 96 _n._, 165 _n._
Dexter, Thomas, 151.
Digges, Edward, 297 _n._
Discovery, right of, basis of title to new lands, 41 and _n._, 42;
questions connected with, 42.
Dissent, growth of, 364, 372.
Distance, from England, influence of, 292, 294, 295, 301, 302.
Divine right of kings, theory of, a protest against divine right of
popes, 365.
Dongan, Thomas, Governor of New York, 412, 413.
Dorchester, church at, 143;
140, 190.
Dorchester (England) fishing company in Mass., 108, 125.
Dorrell, John, 127 _n._
Dover, N. H., founded, 108;
acquired by Puritans, 181;
dispute between church factions at, 217, 218;
treacherous seizure of Indians at, 361;
178.
Dowdney, Richard, Quaker, 268.
Downing, Emanuel, 138, 141, 217 _n._
Downing, Sir George, quoted, 173.
Doyle, J. A., quoted, 187 _n._
Drake, Sir Francis, 30, 32, 95 _n._
Draxe, Sir James, 297 _n._
Dryden, John, 371.
Dudley, Joseph, appointed agent of Mass., 392;
of moderate views, 392 n.;
Governor of Mass., New Hampshire and the King's Province, 408 and
_n._, 409;
legality of his commission protested by General Court, 410;
dissatisfaction with his moderation, 411;
superseded by Andros, 411;
416, 425, 429, 430, 435.
Dudley, Joseph, and John Richards, agents of Mass. in England (1682),
392, 393.
Dudley, Thomas, Deputy Governor of Mass., 169;
125, 126, 138, 140 _n._, 147, 161, 162, 167, 179, 213, 227, 258.
Dunster, Henry, 206.
Dupleix, Marquis, 54.
Dutch, helpfulness of, in trade with Indians, 115;
and the Pilgrims, 187;
at Hartford, 188 and _n._;
territorial claims of, 234;
outnumbered and crowded out by English, 234, 235, 236;
treaty with, not ratified by England, 236;
shut out from carrying trade of English colonies, 291;
instructions of Royal Commission concerning, 330, 331;
reduction of, 336.
Dutch West India Co., 313 _n._
Dyer, Mary, Quaker, fiendish treatment of, 271;
268.
East, the, search for new routes to, 27, 29;
European trade with, in hands of Spain and Portugal, 29.
East India Company, 45, 46, 59.
Eastland Company, 45, 46.
Eaton, Samuel, 263 _n._
Eaton, Theophilus, founds New Haven, 206, 207, 208;
128, 213.
Education, in New England, original object of, religious, 370;
influence of, 370, 371.
And _see_ Common schools.
Edward IV, his charter of 1462, 34, 35.
Edward VI, 69.
Edwards, Jonathan, character of his writings, 82.
Election to General Court, right of, under Mass. charter, 141, 142.
And _see_ Franchise.
Eliot, Rev. John, pleads against sale of Indians into slavery, 362;
345, 357, 380.
Eliot, Sir John, 134, 136, 137.
Elizabeth, Queen, relations of England and Spain under, 30, 31, 32;
her methods of government, 31;
her patent to Sir H. Gilbert, 32, 33, 35;
state of England at her accession, 69, 70;
her opportunism, 70;
vague standard of religious conformity under, 70;
41, 44, 83, 146.
Ellis, George E., quoted, 267.
Emigration, causes of, 1620-1640, 119 _ff._;
influence of form of, 153;
Mass. places restrictions on, 190;
from England, cessation of, 222, 223;
complaints regarding, 422.
Endicott, John, governor of colony at Salem, 125, 126, 127;
hews down Maypole of Merry Mount, 127;
confirmed as governor of Mass., under new charter, 128;
his views of church government, 131;
censured for sending the Brownes to England, 133;
his character, 147;
at Block Island, 200;
as Puritan leader, 258, 259;
and the Quaker persecution, 265, 272, 273;
his violent language, 270 _n._;
his death, 275, 333;
124, 134, 135, 140, 143, 156 _n._, 162, 163, 260, 264, 315, 430.
England, chief imports of, 12;
basis of her claims to part of New World, 27, 28, 42;
and Spain, under Elizabeth, 30, 31;
preys upon Spanish commerce, 36;
claims all North America, 41 and _n._, 42;
treaty of 1604 with Spain, 42, 43;
economic conditions in, 43, 44;
abandons continental conquest after loss of Calais, 44;
trading companies formed in, 45, 46, 47;
value of colonies to, differing views, 45, 46, 47;
state of, at accession of Elizabeth, 69, 70;
problem of church settlement, 70;
low state of morality in, 73, 74;
balance-sheet of American exploration, 91;
conditions in, about 1630, 118, 123, 124;
laws against Catholics suspended, 118;
emigration from, largely due to other than religious causes, 121,
122;
Puritan leaders in New England propose to govern independently of,
155, 156;
effect of domestic political events in, to postpone Colonial affairs,
159, 160, 208, 209, 214, 215, 216, 295, 296;
and France, scene of first step in struggle between, 180, 181;
breach between Puritan leaders in, and in Mass., 195 _ff._;
attitude of New Haven toward, 208;
why emigration ceased, 222, 223;
and Holland, conflicting territorial claims of, 234, 235,
adjusted by treaty, 236;
relations of colonies with, 278, 279, 292, 293, 294, 295;
and colonial shipping, 286;
laws of, relating to colonial trade, 288;
application of Mercantile Theory by, and the Dutch, 291;
value of Navigation Acts to, 291, 292;
scheme for organization of colonies after Restoration, 296, 207, 298;
acts for control of trade and shipping, 298 _ff._;
interference of, with colonial rights, 302, 303;
relation of Mass. to, defined by General Court, 305, 306;
relation of other colonies to, 306;
and the defiant attitude of New England, 313;
complaints against Mass. to government of Charles II, 313 _ff._;
change in relation of colonies to, 317, 366;
rights and interests of citizens of, 327, 328;
question of location of sovereignty in, 364 _ff._;
her wars from 1672 to 1815, wars of trade, 366;
intellectual revival in, 371;
Stoughton and Bulkley agents of Mass. in, 380 _ff._;
her patience exhausted, and why, 390, 391;
her offer of compromise, not accepted, 393;
Mass. charter annulled by _scire facias_, 394;
and the new government in New Hampshire, 399 _ff._;
and the question of land-titles in New England, 418 _ff._;
effect of her method of dealing with the question, 420;
Revolution in (1688), 428;
circular letter of new government to colonies, 432;
war between France and, 436;
furnishes convoys for colonial shipping, 437, 438;
echoes of discontent in Mass. in, 444, 445 and _n._;
Mather's labors in, 445, 446.
And _see_ British Empire, Charles I, Charles II, Clarendon,
Elizabeth, James I, James II, Lords of Trade and Plantations.
“England and Ireland, Realmes of,” 35 _n._
English, the, none of great river highways originally held by, 3;
locus of earliest effort at colonization by, 12;
treatment of Indians by, 39, 40;
break up French settlements in Maine and Nova Scotia, 54-56;
numbers of, in different colonies, in 1630, 120, 121;
emigrants to Ireland, 120.
English and French possessions in North America during settlement
period contrasted, 3.
English nation, involved in founding of settlements by Englishmen, 281.
English seamen, under Drake and his fellows, 30, 31.
Esquimaux, 24.
Essex County, Mass., resistance to tax-levy in, 425, 426.
Established Church, a necessity in England, 70, 146;
where real struggle for control of, lay, 71.
And _see_ Church of England.
European civilization, effect on, of expansion due to opening of new
lands, 30, 31, 398, 399.
European commerce with the East, etc., 26;
seeks new route to East, 26, 27;
passes into hands of Spain and Portugal, 29.
European goods, restrictions on shipment of, to colonies, 300, 301.
Evelyn, John, 372.
Exeter, N. H., founded, 182;
and the settlement at Hampton, 182, 183.
Fairfield, Conn., 206.
Farmers, white and colored, comparative efficiency of, in North, 8.
Faroe Islands, 12.
Fenwick, George, 242.
Finch, Katherine, 172.
Firearms, sale of, to Indians, 113, 344;
Indians required to surrender, 344, 347;
English, inferior to Indian, 350.
Fish, staple of exchange, 11;
demand for, in Europe, 28;
opposition to monopoly in, 106.
Fisher, Mary, Quaker, 264.
Fisheries of New England, 11, 104, 106, 286,
and of Newfoundland, 286;
produce a race of seamen, 11.
Fiske, John, 28 _n._
Flemings, in England, 122.
Folger, Peter, “A Looking-Glass for the Times,” 274 _n._
Forefathers Day, 99 _n._
Forests, as barriers, 3, 4;
extent of, in New England, 9.
Fortrey, Samuel, _England's Interest and Improvement_, quoted, 283,
284.
Fortune, the (vessel), captured by French with first shipment of pelts,
102.
Fowle, Thomas, 213, 214.
France, Verrazano sails under flag of, 28;
claims all North America, 41;
Mercantile Theory in, 285;
Colbert's policy abandoned by, 291;
at war with England, 337, 446.
Franchise, religious test for, 172, 185, 192, 197, 213 _f._, 217, 252,
253, 254, 319, 383, 384, 389, 392, 393, 445, 446;
royal orders concerning, 323;
new law concerning, characterized, 331, 332;
property qualification for, 389, 392, 393, 445, 446;
question of, in new charter for Mass., 434, 435, 445, 446.
Frazer, J. G., quoted, 68 _n._
“Free planters,” in New Haven, 207, 208.
Free speech, denial of, inevitable, 143;
212.
Freemen, in Mass., the only enfranchised voters, 142;
petition for increase in number of, 144;
limited to church members, 145, 162;
152, 154, 155, 160, 314, 400, 435;
in Connecticut, 192;
in New Hampshire, 217.
French, the, on New England coast, 38;
permanent settlement of, at Quebec, 38;
beginning of friendship with Indians 39, 40;
colonization contrasted with English, 39, 340, 345;
settlements of, broken up, 54-56;
capture the Fortune, 102;
missionary efforts of, 345;
supply Indians with arms, 361;
danger to English colonies from, 426;
behind Indian raids, 438.
French West Indies. _See_ West Indies (French).
Frontenac, Count, 440.
Frontier, natural, 1;
westward movement of, causes grouping of colonies into East and West,
2;
unlimited, in North America, and its effect on institutions, 29, 30;
constant advance of, 176 _ff._, 195, 197, 198;
the refuge of restless and discontented, 177;
influence of, on domestic concerns of colonies, 209 _ff._;
spirit of resistance to interference developed on, 302;
advance of, followed by erection of towns, 340;
influence of, 367, 419.
Fuller, Samuel, 131.
Fuller, Thomas, 371.
“Fundamental Orders” of Connecticut, 192, 193.
Fur-trade, exhaustion of, in New England, 6;
beginnings at Plymouth, 102, 114, 115;
importance of, 178, 179;
238.
Gama, Vasco da, 27.
Gardiner, Christopher, takes refuge with Indians, 150;
relations with Gorges, 150, 151;
156.
Gardiner, Lyon, 196, 200, 201.
Gawsell, Gregory, 125, 134.
General Court of Connecticut, representation in, 192;
relation of, to towns, 192;
declares war against Pequots, 202 _ff._;
413.
General Court of Massachusetts Bay, functions of, under charter, 128;
first session of, 141;
towns represented in, 154;
functions of, enlarged, at expense of freemen, 160;
and R. Williams, 163;
establishes council of magistrates for life, 161, 162;
refuses to accept Vane's resignation, 168;
disciplines Wheelwright, 169;
invalidates election of Vane and others, and admits them on
reelection, 169;
passes new immigration law, 169;
purged for lack of zeal, 170;
and atones therefor, 170 _ff._;
dispute between magistrates and deputies in, 189;
resolution of, as to laws in force, 209, 210;
judgment of, in “Sow” case, 212;
appeal of non-church members for increase of privileges, denied, 213,
214;
legislates to assist debtors, 222;
grants land in Rhode Island to Braintree men, 247, 248;
convokes synod, 255;
Cambridge Platform adopted by, against opposition, 257;
passes laws against Quakers, 265, 266, 268;
enacts death penalty by bare majority, 270 _n._;
severity of laws modified, 273;
growing opposition in, to persecution of Quakers, 275;
defines relations of colony to England, 305, 306;
censures Leverett for violation of Navigation Acts, 313;
sends addresses to King and Parliament, 321;
revives severe laws against Quakers, 323;
laws passed by, repugnant to laws of England, 327;
and the Royal Commission, 331, 332;
passes new election law, 331, 332;
answers of, to requests and charges of Commission, 333, 334;
letter of Carr and others to, 334, 335;
refuses to send agents to England, 336;
disregards petition of citizens opposed to its action, 336, 337;
asserts God's reason for Philip's War, 349;
and the Indians, 357;
replies to royal letter, 380, 381;
tergiversations of, regarding Navigation Acts, 384, 385;
seeks extension of northern boundary, 385;
agrees to administer oath of allegiance and to legislate against
treason, 387;
reënacts Navigation Acts, 387;
sends Dudley and Richards as agents, 392, 393;
deadlocked as to acceptance of offer to compromise in matter of
annulment of charter, 393;
protests legality of Dudley's commission, 410.
And _see_ Assistants.
Geographic factors, in New England, 11 _ff._;
influence of, 153, 292.
Geographic science, progress in, 26, 27.
Gerrard, Sir Thomas, 38.
Gilbert, Adrian, 41.
Gilbert, Sir Humphrey, terms of his patent, 32, 33,
and questions raised thereby, 35, 36;
failure of his colonizing efforts, 36;
31.
Gilbert, Sir John, 52.
Gilbert, Raleigh, founds settlement on Sagadahoc (Kennebec) River, 50,
51, 52.
Gilman, John, 400.
Godfrey, Edward, 244, 245 and _n._, 314.
Goffe, Sir Thomas, 128.
Goffe, William, regicide, 314.
Gombroon, 280.
Gomez, Estienne, voyages of, 28.
Gooch, G. P., quoted, 84, 144.
Good Hope, fort of, 234, 235, 236, 237, 242.
Goodman, John, 100.
Gookin, Daniel, 357.
Gorges, Sir Ferdinando, attitude of Puritans toward, 49;
sends vessel to New England, 49 and _n._;
his agents in Maine, 60, 61;
secures new charter, 62;
his _Briefe Narration_, 103;
grant to Mason and, 104;
consents to issuance of patent for settlement at Salem, 126;
and Morton, 149;
his relations with Puritan peers, 149;
and the Bay Colony, 149, 150;
attacks the colony's charter, 151, 156 _ff._;
details of his scheme, 158;
his hopes dashed, 159;
appointed governor of New England, 158, 159;
and Mason, divide province of Maine, 177, 178;
his death, 244;
claim of heirs of, to Maine, declared valid, 375, 376, 382;
48, 51, 52, 125, 216, 218, 245, 314, 324.
Gorges, Ferdinando (the younger), protests against absorption of Maine
by Mass., 314;
sets up his claim against that of Mass., 324, 325;
335, 379, 380, 381, 382, 385.
Gorges, John, 125, 149.
Gorges, Robert, Governor of New England, 106;
forms settlement at Wessagussett, 108;
109, 126, 127 _n._, 149.
Gorges, William, 178.
Gorton, Samuel, a wanderer, 218, 219;
banished from Providence, 219;
buys Indian land, 219;
action of Mass. against, 219, 220;
his religious views, 221 and _n._;
239, 240, 241, 247, 248, 305.
Gosnold, Bartholomew, his voyage in 1602, 36, 37;
at Jamestown, 48, 49;
40.
Gove, Edward, 403.
Grafton, Mass., 345.
Gray, Thomas, 151.
Great Island, N. H., 437.
Green Mountains, 4.
Greene, John, 386.
Greenland, 12.
_Groans of the Plantations, The_, quoted, 388 _n._
Groton, 360.
Guadaloupe, 291.
Guercheville, Madame de, founds St. Sauveur, on Mt. Desert, 55;
41.
Guiana, 91.
Guiana Company, 46.
Guinea Company, 46.
Guinn, ——, 402.
Gunnbiörn's Skerries, 12 _n._
_Habeas Corpus_, right of, not extended to colonies, 425 _n._
Hadley, Mass., 354 and _n._, 355, 356.
Hakluyt, R., “A Discourse concerning Western Planting,” quoted, 31
_n._, 37.
“Half-way Covenant,” 263.
Halley, Edmund, 371.
Hampden, John, 125, 136, 137.
Hampton, dispute over settlement at, 182, 183.
Hanham, Thomas, 48, 50 and _n._
Hardy, Thomas, 72.
Harlow, Edward, 54.
Harris, William, 338 _n._
Harrison, William, 44.
Harrisse, H., 28 _n._
Hartford, Dutch at, 188 and _n._;
191, 192.
Harvard College, 369.
Harvey, William, 371.
Hatfield, Mass., 360.
Hawkins, Sir John, 30.
Hawkins, Sir Richard, 60.
Haynes, John, Governor of Mass., 167, 189.
Henchman, Daniel, 353.
Henri IV, 38, 41.
Henrietta Maria, Queen, 118.
Henry II, 41 _n._
Henry IV, his charter of 1404, 34.
Henry VII, 27, 28.
Henry VIII, break with Rome under, 68, 69;
71.
Henson, Rev. H. H., 96 _n._
Herrick, Robert, 371.
Hibbens, Ann, 264.
Higginson, Rev. Francis, teacher of Salem church, 131;
quoted, 129, 417;
127, 140, 263 _n._, 371.
High Commission, Court of, 71, 80, 151.
Hilton, Edward and William, settle on Piscataqua River, 108 and _n._
Hilton patent, the, 196.
Hinckley, Thomas, 416.
Hobbes, Thomas, 371.
Hobomack (Indian), 101.
Hobson, Captain, 54, 60.
Hocking, ——, murder of, at Augusta, 178, 179 _n._, 298.
Hoffe, ——, 169.
Holden, Christopher, Quaker, 268.
Holden, Randall, 386.
Holland, Earl of, 125.
Holland, her claims to territory in New England, invalid, 53 and _n._;
state of, in early 17th century, 89 and _n._;
religious toleration in, 118;
treaty with England, not ratified, 236;
Cromwell forces war on, 236;
United Colonies declare war on, 238;
carrying trade of, 298;
England at war with, 337;
peace with, 375;
146, 312.
And _see_ Dutch.
Holmes, Obadiah, Baptist, whipped at Lynn, 259 _ff._
Hooker, Rev. Thomas, arrives at Newtown, 189;
denied permission to go to Connecticut, 189;
but takes his congregation thither, 190, 191;
his “famous sermon,” 192 and _n._,
and J. Winthrop, 193, 194;
his death, 258;
167, 168, 195, 210, 372.
Hopkins, Edward, Governor of Connecticut, 213.
Hopkins, Steven, 101.
Hopkinton, 345.
Housatonic River, 235 and _n._
Hubbard, William, quoted, 97, 354 _n._
Hudlston, John, 103 _n._
Hudson, Henry, on coast of Virginia, 53;
Dutch claims based on voyage of, 53;
6.
Hudson River, 53 and _n._
Hudson-Mohawk river highway, 3, 312.
Huguenots, and the fall of Rochelle, 118;
in England, 122.
Hull, Rev. Mr., 227.
Humphrey, John, 124, 127, 128, 134, 138, 140 and _n._, 141, 157, 196,
223.
Hunt, Thomas, 59.
Hutchinson, Ann, and the Antinomian controversy, 165 _ff._;
tried and banished, 171;
210, 220.
Hutchinson, Edward, 354.
Hutchinson, L., quoted, 84, 85.
Hutchinson, Thomas, _History of Massachusetts Bay_, quoted, 258, 259,
433;
424.
Hutchinson, William, 165.
Iceland, 12.
Immigration law (Mass.), terms of, 169, 170, 173.
And _see_ Emigration.
Imperial sovereignty, 293.
India, English successes in, 56;
English interests in (1660), 280.
Indian land-titles, purchase of, 39, 340 _f._
Indian warfare, colonists ignorant of, 350.
Indians, dealings of colonists with, 14, 24, 25, 39, 40, 198, 199, 239
_ff._;
character and mental traits of, 14 _ff._;
still in Stone Age at time of discovery of America, 16;
agriculture and the chase, 16, 19, 20;
political and social organization of, 17 _ff._;
war, their natural condition, 19;
position of women among, 21, 22;
and the arts, 22;
economic life, 23;
in animistic stage of religious belief, 23;
linguistic, the best method of classification of, 23, 24;
numbers of, in New England, 24, 338, 339;
foundation of friendship with French, 39, 40;
sickness among, 99, 100 and _n._;
and the Pilgrims, 101, 102;
beginnings of trade with, 102, 115;
threats of trouble with, 103;
plot of, against Wessagussett, foiled, 105;
Morton sells fire-arms to, 113;
and Morton, 148;
Williams escapes to, 165;
solicit colonists to come to Connecticut River, 187;
slight danger from, in New New England, 197, 198;
rumors of general uprising, 240;
geographical distribution of, 339;
land-dealings of settlers with, 340 _ff._, 348, 349;
Puritans' treatment of, and their reaction to it, 342;
special laws for, 343;
causes of friction with, 344;
missionary work among, 345, 346;
changed relations of whites and, 348, 349;
innocent, inhuman treatment of, by Mass., 357;
supplied by French with arms, etc., 361;
treacherous seizure of, at Dover, 361;
terms of treaty with (1678), 362 and _n._;
psychological effect of war on, 362;
treatment of captives by colonists, 362;
protests against sale of, into slavery, 362;
control of relations with, in all North America, given to Andros,
426;
threats of trouble with, 426;
expeditions against, at divers places, 427;
hostilities begun by, 436, 437.
And _see_ Beothuks, Iroquois, Narragansetts, Nipmucks, Pequots,
Praying Indians.
Indies, English rights of trade with, surrendered by treaty of 1604,
43.
Individual, the, responsibility of, to God, 67;
rights of, and the Gorton case, 221.
Individual initiative, development of, in Tudor times, 31.
Individual liberty, and the struggle between England and her colonies,
329.
Individualism, increasing sense of, 66, 67.
Inquisition, the, 31.
Insurance (cargo), high cost of, 114.
Intercolonial trade, New England's share in, 10;
300.
Ipswich, resistance to tax-levy in, 425.
Ireland, schemes for colonizing, 33;
settlements in, 59 and _n._;
English emigrants to, 120.
Irish Plantation Society, 33, 46, 47.
Iroquois, superior art of, in pottery, 22;
24, 312.
Island colonies, planted by England, 119.
Isothermal lines, on Atlantic coast, 10.
Italy, cities of, lose Oriental trade, 29.
Jamaica, religious toleration in, 276;
287, 367, 381.
James I, 40, 42, 47, 48, 51, 58, 71, 132, 279.
James II, opposes grant of popular assembly in New England, 414;
proclamation of, in view of invasion from Holland, 428;
dethroned, 430;
408, 410, 411, 424, 427, 431.
Jamestown, founded, 38, 49;
troubles of, 61, 62;
massacre at, 103;
91.
Java, 280.
Jephson, W., 431.
Jermyn, Sir Robert, 72.
Jesuits, at St. Sauveur, 55, 56;
missionaries in America, 345.
Johnson, Lady Arbella, 140.
Johnson, Isaac, 125, 128, 138, 140.
Joint stock. _See_ Common stock.
Jones, Christopher, captain of the Mayflower, 95 _n._, 97 and _n._
Jones, Thomas, 95 _n._, 97 _n._
Josselyn, Henry, 244.
Keaynes, Robert, and the “Sow” case, 211, 212, 232 _n._, 314 _n._
Kennebec River, trade with settlements on, 115, 116;
Hocking affray on, 178;
6, 50, 104.
Kieft, Dutch governor, 235.
King David (vessel), 289 _n._
King's Chapel (Boston), 421, 442.
King's Province, organized, 332, 333;
Dudley, governor of, 409;
386, 387.
Kirk, Sir W., 180.
Kirke, Percy, comes near being governor of New England, 407 and _n._
Kittery, 245.
Kittredge, George L., _Robert Child the Remonstrant_, 214 _n._
Knower, Thomas, 151.
La Saussaye, M. de, 55 and _n._
La Tour, Claude Etienne de, in Acadia, 232, 233, 234.
Labrador current, 12.
Land, travel by, effect of difficulty and expense of, 7.
Land, free grants of, in New England colonies, 153;
and the development of American ideals, 176;
method of acquisition of, from Indians, 340, 341;
title to, by conquest, 341;
“one of the gods of New England,” 243;
prospect of owning, the main attraction to emigrants, 419;
effect of wide distribution of small holdings, 419.
Land-system of New England, 153.
Land-titles, in Mass., establishment of new government complicated by
question of, 416 _ff._;
Higginson on derivation of, 418.
Land-values, in England, rise of, 123.
Lathrop, Thomas, 355.
Laud, William, Archbishop of Canterbury, declares war on Puritans, 157;
121, 148, 151, 158, 162.
Lawyers, scarcity of, in New England, 417.
Lechford, T., 132.
Leddra, William, Quaker, 272, 273.
Lee, Robert E., quoted, 408.
Leere, Sir Peter, 297.
Leroy-Beaulieu, Pierre P., _De la Colonisation_, etc., quoted, 44 _n._
Lescarbot, Marc, 39 and _n._
Levant Company, 45, 46.
Leverett, John, agent of Mass. in England, 321, 322;
and Randolph, 378, 379;
on the relation of Mass. to England, 378;
312, 313, 350, 389.
Levett, Christopher, settles at York, 108.
Leyden, Pilgrim church at, 89;
seven articles of the church at, 92;
emigrants to Plymouth, 97, 98.
Liberal sentiment in religion and economics, growth of, in New England,
373, 374.
Liberty, double nature of struggle for, in colonial period, 155, 311,
329, 435;
not a natural fact, 365;
and the struggle between England and the colonies, 395, 396.
Liberty of conscience. _See_ Religious toleration.
Lincoln, Earl of, 92, 125, 138, 149, 177, 197.
Littleton, Mass., 345.
Local governments in New England. _See_ Towns.
Locke, John, 371.
London, capital for Pilgrims' enterprise largely subscribed in, 99;
381.
And _see_ Adventurers.
London Company, provided for in Virginia charter, 48;
founds Jamestown, 48, 49;
changes in charter of, 62;
hostility of, to Gorges, 62.
Long Island, 226.
Long Island Sound, 4, 5, 6, 206, 339.
Longmeadow, 360.
Lord's Prayer, the, frowned on by Puritans, 82.
Lords Commissioners for Plantations in General, charter of Mass.
investigated by, 157, 158.
Lords of Trade and Plantations, take over colonial affairs, 375;
and the New England question, 375 _ff._;
Randolph's report to, 379;
examine merchants as to trading practices of New England, 379, 380;
advise _Quo Warranto_ process against Mass., 384;
advise reconstruction of government of New Hampshire, 402;
and Cranfield, 404;
and the Mason claim to New Hampshire, 405;
391 and _n._, 408, 412, 436, 437, 445.
Louis XIII, 181.
Louis XIV, 288.
Love, W. de L., 191 _n._
Lyford, John, a canting clergyman, 106, 107;
and Oldham, 107;
banished, 107, 108.
Lygonia grant, 244.
Lynn, Henry, 151.
Lynn, Mass., Baptists fined at, 259, 260;
matter of iron-works at, 314 and _n._;
140.
McIlwain, C. H., _The High Court of Parliament_, etc., quoted, 307.
Machias, 180.
Madras, 280.
Magellan, Ferdinand, 27.
Magistrates, right of, to perpetual reelection, 161, 162.
And _see_ Assistants.
Maine, geographical conditions in northern, 5;
thinly settled, 5;
coast of, long a debatable land between French and English, 39;
settlers in, 120;
early history of, 177 _ff._;
Mason and Gorges grant divided between them, 177, 178;
scene of first step in struggle between France and England, 180, 181;
slow growth of population in, 183;
no settled government in, 217;
claim of Mass. to territory in, 217;
province of, annexed by Mass., 244, 245;
conditions in, under Mass., 317;
Gorges claim to, 324, 325, 376;
again taken under jurisdiction of Mass., 335, 336;
losses of, in Philip's War, 363;
bought by Mass., 386;
disaffection of people of, 386 and _n._;
Mass. ordered to surrender title-deeds of, 389,
but sets up government there, 389, 390;
Indian troubles in, 427, 437;
included in Mass. under new charter, 449;
3, 215, 227, 339, 361, 393.
Malynes, Gerard, 114 _n._;
Maps, early, of Atlantic coast, 28.
Marlborough, Earl of, 134.
Marlborough, Mass., 345, 357, 360.
Marshall, Christopher, 263 _n._
Martha's Vineyard, gold sought on, 60;
345.
Martinique, 291.
Martyn, Richard, 400.
Marvell, Andrew, 371.
Mary, Queen, 31, 69.
Mary II, Queen, 445.
Maryland, settlers in, 120;
religious freedom in, 275;
285, 439.
Marsden, J. B., quoted, 76.
Mason, John, bounds of grants to, 104;
and Gorges divide province of Maine, 177, 178;
death of, 181;
claim of heirs of, to land in New Hampshire, declared valid, 375,
376, 382;
109, 126, 156, 159, 216, 245, 324.
Mason, Capt. John, leads expedition against Pequots, 202 _ff._
Mason, Robert, protests against annexation of New Hampshire to Mass.,
314;
his title confirmed by Parliamentary committee, 324, 325;
and the new royal government, 399 _ff._;
difficulties of, 401;
deal with Cranfield, 403 and _n._;
his claims impossible to adjust, 404, 405;
377, 378, 379, 380, 381, 382, 390, 409, 420.
Massachusetts, coast of, 5, 6;
misapprehension concerning emigration to, 119;
settlers in, in 1630 and 1640, 120;
population of, and of Barbadoes compared, 121;
proportion of Puritan element in population of, 121, 122.
Massachusetts Bay, Pilgrims' first trading voyage to, 102;
37.
Massachusetts Bay, Governor and Company of (Bay Colony), charter
granted to, 127, 128;
original patentees, 127, 128;
shades of religious belief, 129;
transfer of charter to Winthrop and others, 138-140;
removal of charter to America, 139;
settlements of Winthrop and his band, 140;
climatic and economic conditions in, 140, 141;
violations of charter of, 141, 142, 145, 162;
freemen of, only enfranchised voters, 142;
non-church members seek a share in management of affairs, 145;
limitations of founders, 147, 148;
severe measures against critics, 151, 152;
elements in political history of, 155;
Gorges's attack on, 156 _ff._;
writ of _Quo Warranto_, to repeal Charter, 158, 159;
prepares for armed resistance, 159;
towns of, question legislation by magistrates, 160;
election of magistrates for life in, 161, 162;
and Ann Hutchinson, 166 _ff._;
control of oligarchy in, how confirmed, 169, 170, 171, 172;
intolerance of leaders criticized by friends in England, 172, 173;
technical rights of colonists under charter, considered, 173;
results of intolerant policy on intellectual life of, 174;
dispute with Plymouth over Hocking case, 178, 179;
refuses to aid Plymouth against French, 181;
and Wheelwright's settlement in Exeter, 182;
and the settlement at Hampton, 182, 183;
influence of, in Rhode Island and Connecticut, 183 _ff._;
contrast between Rhode Island and, 185, 186;
sends expedition to Connecticut, 187 and _n._, 188;
restrictions on permission to leave colony, 189, 190;
and settlements in Connecticut, 190, 191, 207;
influence of, on development of American thought, 193, 194;
attitude of clergy in, 194, 195;
isolation of, 197;
dealings with Indians, 198 _ff._,
and their results, 201 _ff._;
appeals to R. Williams to mediate with Indians, 201;
appeals to Plymouth for aid, 202;
demand for return of charter to England, refused, 209;
beginnings of opposition to oligarchy in, 210, 211;
adopts the “Body of Liberties,” and new code of laws, 211;
claims of, to territory of Maine and New Hampshire, 216, 217, 227,
328;
annexes Dover, 217,
and Exeter, 218;
intervenes in Gorton case, 219, 220, 221;
population and resources of, 221, 224;
alienates her friends in England, 223;
submits draft of proposed Confederation, 224, 225;
her policy, to extend her claims and control, 226;
her advantages, 226, 227;
her spite against Rhode Island, 227;
territorial acquisitions before formation of Confederation, 228;
dominates councils of Confederation, 230;
the inglorious expedition to Acadia, 232 _ff._;
effect of abstention of, from quarrels with Dutch, 237, 238;
her purity of motive questioned, 238;
and the declaration of war against the Dutch, 238, 239;
controversy with Connecticut over taxation, 242, 243;
imposes import duty on goods from other colonies entering Boston,
243;
disputed boundary line between Connecticut and, 243;
annexes Maine and New Hampshire, 243, 244;
results of her policy of annexation, 245, 246;
development of that policy checked in South, 246 _ff._;
claims Pequot country and Narragansett country, 250;
increasing demand for reform in franchise, 253, 254;
arrogance of theocracy in, 262;
growth of liberal opinion in, 262;
persecution of Quakers in, 264-277;
religious intolerance of leaders in, considered, 276, 277;
tendency of, to escape from jurisdiction of England, 304, 313, 322,
326, 376;
and the oath of allegiance, 304 and _n._;
official declarations of her attitude, 304, 305;
her attitude contrasted with that of other colonies, 306;
close connection of theology and politics in, 311;
complaints against, on divers grounds, 313 _ff._,
instructions of, to agents in London, 321, 322;
prepares to defend herself by force, 322;
letter of Charles II, confirming charter, etc., how complied with,
323, 324;
and the Mason and Gorges claims, 324, 325;
critical importance of her attitude, 326;
logical result of her untenable assumption of virtual independence,
327, 328, 329;
position of liberal element in, 329;
Royal Commission in, 331 _ff._;
successfully reasserts claim to New Hampshire, 335;
Maine again under her jurisdiction, 335, 336;
ordered to send agents to England, 336;
ultimate result of her defiance, 337;
charged with conniving to make Indians drunk, 344 and _n._;
“Praying Indians” in, 345;
raising troops in, 351, 355 and _n._;
drives Narragansetts into opposition, 352, 353;
division of command against Indians between Connecticut and, 355,
356;
refuses to use services of friendly Indians, 356, 357;
her inhuman treatment of Indians, 357;
unable to protect eastern settlements, 362;
towns destroyed in war, 363;
cost of war to, 363;
her independent attitude notorious, 367;
laws concerning schools in, 369,
how nullified, 370;
growth of dissent in, 372, 373;
her disregard of Navigation Acts, 376;
Randolph, special messenger from England to, how treated, 377, 378;
sends agents to England, 380, 381;
opinion of Judges on charter and boundaries of, 382,
and of Attorney General on certain laws of, 382, 383;
her defiant attitude censured in mandate to Stoughton and Bulkley,
383;
purchases Maine from Gorges, 386;
her government there illegal and unpopular, 386 and _n._;
and the King's Province, 387;
inconsistency of, regarding taxation without representation, 388;
terms of royal letter to, 389;
establishes government in Maine against royal command, 389;
how her charter might have been saved, 390;
consequences of her illegal trade, 391;
_Quo Warranto_ process against charter, 393;
England offers to drop proceedings, on terms, 393, 394;
her charter annulled, 394;
loss of charter, why not to be regretted, 394 _ff._;
her two valuable contributions to American political life, 397;
and the appointment of Dudley as governor, 408;
question of land-titles in, 416 _ff._;
increased liberty of individual in, under Andros, 423;
and the spectre of Rome, 427, 428, 429;
Mather, in England, seeks restoration of charter, 431, 432;
compromise government formed in, after fall of Andros, 433 _ff._;
points to be considered in drawing new charter for, 434, 435;
two separate struggles for freedom in, 435;
difficulties about raising troops, 437;
Indian depredations in, 437;
losses of, in expedition against Canada, 441, 442;
financial troubles of, 442;
increasing discontent in, 442 _ff._;
failure of attempts to obtain restoration of charter, 444;
complaints against, reach England, 444, 445;
new charter of (1691), 446 _ff._;
opinions of new charter in, 449, 450;
bounds of, extended, to include Plymouth, Maine, etc., 450;
rights of, under old and new charters, 450;
effect of new charter, 450.
And _see_ Boston, Franchise, General Court of Mass., Puritan leaders,
Puritans, Salem, Theocracy.
Massachusetts Company, 46.
Massasoit, Wampanoag sachem, Plymouth settlers make treaty with, 101;
his death, 346;
105.
Masson, D., cited, 76.
Mather, Cotton, and the witchcraft delusion, 452 _ff._;
quoted, 451, 455;
442.
Mather, Increase, and Philip's son, 362;
in England, 431, 432;
seeks restoration of charter of Mass., 431, 432;
quoted, 422, 453, 454;
407, 427, 435, 444, 445, 446, 451, 455.
Mathews, L. K., 338 _n._, 339 _n._
Matinicus Island, 55.
Maverick, Samuel, the only freeman not a church member, 213, 214;
corresponds with Clarendon on affairs in Mass., 315;
his plans for reorganization of colonies, 315, 316, 317;
member of Royal Commission, 330, 331;
letters of, to Mass., 334, 335;
advice of, as to charter of Mass., 336;
144.
Mayflower, the, chartered by Pilgrims, 95 and _n._;
sails from Plymouth, 96, 97;
her ship's company, 96, 97;
arrives at Provincetown, 97, and at Plymouth, 99;
sails for home, 101.
Mayflower Compact, the only basis of independent civil government in
Plymouth, 98;
116.
Mayhew, Thomas, 345.
“May-Pole of Merry Mount,” 110, 111;
destroyed by Endicott, 127.
Medfield, Mass., 360.
Medford, Mass., 140.
Medicine-men, 22, 23.
Mercantile Theory, discussed, 282 _ff._;
the ideal empire according to, 284, 285;
in France, 285, 288, 289;
British Empire most complete embodiment of ideal of, 285, 286;
New England fails to fit into, 286 _ff._;
corollaries of, 288;
modern view of, 290, 291;
effect of abandonment of, by France, 291;
309.
Merrimac River, 7, 104, 178, 216, 245, 324, 340, 382, 385.
Merry Mount. _See_ Morton, Thomas, Mt. Wollaston.
Mexico, conquest of, 29.
Miantanomo (Indian), taken prisoner by Uncas, 239;
placed in custody of English and put to death, 240, 241;
a consistent friend of the English, 240;
199, 201, 205, 219, 358.
Middle class, growth of, 85;
Puritanism and, 85.
Milford, Mass., 206.
Milton, John, _Of True Religion_, etc., quoted, 80;
_Paradise Lost_, 82;
371.
Minorities, rights of, and the Puritans, 73.
Misselden, L., _The Circle of Commerce_, etc., quoted, 282, 283.
Mississippi River, 3, 6, 426.
Mohegans (Indians), 202, 204, 239.
Monhegan Island, permanent settlement on, 108, 115;
178.
Montcalm, Marquis de, 54.
Montreal, unsuccessful expedition against, 439, 440.
Monts, Sieur de, charter granted to, by Henri IV (1603), 38, 39;
attempts to found settlement, 38, 39;
53.
Montserrat, 120.
Moody, Rev. Joshua, 438, 439.
Morell, Rev. William, 106.
Morris, Sir E., quoted, 291.
Morton, Nathaniel, _Memorial_, 97 _n._
Morton, Thomas, with Wollaston at Mt. Wollaston, 109, 110;
his character and “doings,” 110;
sells fire-arms to Indians, 113, 148;
sent back to England, 113;
false grounds of his banishment, 148, 149;
joins hands with Gorges, 149 and _n._;
97, 127, 150, 151, 156, 158.
Moseley, Samuel, his unique brutality, 357;
350, 356.
Moundeford, Sir Edward, 125.
Mount Desert. _See_ St. Sauveur.
Mount Wollaston (Quincy), Morton and Wollaston at, 109, 110;
expedition against, 113.
Mun, Thomas, and the Mercantile Theory, 283, and _n._
Murray, Gilbert, _Rise of the Greek Epic_, quoted, 14, 15.
Muscovy Company, 32, 45, 46.
Myrand, E., quoted, 440 _n._
Nantasket, 104, 351.
Nantucket, 345.
Narragansett Bay, colonizing sites around, 184;
settlements on, 246;
6, 318, 339.
Narragansett country, encroachments of Mass. on, 386;
320, 325.
Narragansett River, 321.
Narragansetts, challenge the Pilgrims, 103;
and Pequots, 199, 200, 201;
won over to colonists by Williams, 201;
seek protection of English crown, 247;
lands of, claimed by Mass., 250;
and by Rhode Island, 251,
and mortgaged to Atherton Co., 251;
number of, 338, 339;
forced to join colonists against Philip, 352, 353;
colonists declare war on, 358;
defeated at Pettisquamscott, but not annihilated, 359, 360;
199, 202, 204, 239, 240, 341.
Nashobeh, 357.
Natick, 345.
Nationality, growth of idea of, 66.
Naumkeag River, 104.
Navigation Acts, 291, 292, 297, 298, 299, 301, 303, 308, 312, 313, 326,
330, 334, 366, 373, 376, 378, 381, 383, 384, 385, 387, 401, 411,
446.
Negroes, 285.
Neville, ——, 87.
Nevis, island of, 119, 120, 367, 429.
New Amsterdam, 119, 120, 187, 188.
New England, group of colonies in, generally homogeneous, 2;
a geographical unit, 2;
topographical characteristics of, 4, 5;
rivers of, 6;
effects of exhaustion of fur-trade in, 7;
conditions that stimulated manufacturing in, 7, 8, 9;
economic impossibility of slavery in, 8;
comparative value of land in, and in Southern colonies, 9;
shipbuilding in, 9, 10;
marked seasonal changes in, 10;
intercolonial and foreign trade of, 10, 13;
fishing industry, the corner-stone of prosperity of, 11;
geographic factors in life of, 11 _ff._;
forced to find other outlets than England for her products, 12, 13;
influence of environment on settlers in, 13;
numbers of Indians in, 24;
Gosnold's voyage, 36, 37;
failure of efforts to found permanent settlements in, 38;
the de Monts charter, 38;
coast of, explored and mapped by Champlain, 39;
included in territory granted to Plymouth Co., 48;
conflicting claims to, could be settled only by force, 53;
Smith's map and writings spread knowledge of, 58, 59;
effort to found a state in, by self-confessed elect, 81;
beginning of settlements on coast of, 103, 104;
missionary work in, 345;
genius of, never military, 349;
second generation of settlers in, true colonials, 368;
Lords of Trade deal with problem of, 375 _ff._, 379, 380;
Randolph Collector of Customs in, 385, 386;
vain efforts to settle problem of, 390, 391;
seven jurisdictions in, 406;
New York and the Jerseys united with, under Andros, 413.
New England colonies, Plymouth men not the only founders of, 109;
why Puritanism flourished in, 112, 113;
comparative numbers of settlers in, and in other colonies, 120;
Congregationalism in, 129, 130;
Church of England services tabooed in, 130;
church system of, and the Salem Church, 131, 132, 133;
land-system of, 153;
effects of frontier life and distance on relations of, with England,
208, 209,
and on domestic concerns of, 209 _ff._;
course of, during troubles in England, 215 _ff._;
possible methods of unifying, 216;
population of, in 1640, 221;
economic disaster in, 221, 222;
cessation of emigration to, 222, 223;
threatened emigration from, 223, 224;
confederation of, discussed, 224, 225;
intense local feeling an obstacle, 225, 226;
tendency toward expansion, 226;
differing status of, in proposed confederation, 227, 228;
unification of, meant absorption by Mass., 246;
parts of a complex system, 278;
not independent states, 278, 279, 292;
and the Mercantile Theory, 286 _ff._;
trade relations of, with England, etc., 286, 287;
considerately treated by England, 300, 301;
foreign commerce of, 312;
and the Navigation Acts, 312, 313;
situation of, how changed by Restoration, 317;
Maverick's plan for reorganization of, 315, 316;
native-born colonials in, 316, 317;
boundary disputes in, 325;
objects of suspicion in England, 326;
economic welfare of, bound up with that of the Empire, 326, 327;
growth of, 1660 to 1675, 338 and _n._;
settled area of, in 1675, 339;
laws of, concerning dealings with Indians, 341, 343;
effects of jealousy among, in war-time, 350;
difficulty of raising troops, 350, 351;
treatment of Indian captives by, 362;
losses of, in Philip's War, 362, 363;
result of the war on public sentiment in, 363;
characteristics of religious element in, 368,
education in, 369;
impoverishment of intellectual life in, 371, 372;
rise of new parties in, 372, 373;
evasion of Navigation Acts by, 376;
trade practices of, 379, 380;
plans for general government of, 406, 407;
saved from Col. Kirke, 407 and _n._;
temporary government of Dudley a step toward consolidation of, 409;
omission of popular assembly a blunder, 409, 410, 411, 414;
further steps toward consolidation, 412, 413;
under Andros, 413 _ff._;
law-making power, where vested, 414, 415;
functions of the Council, 414 _ff._;
question of land-titles in, 416;
dearth of lawyers and legal knowledge in, 417;
legal questions referred to clergy, 417;
equalizing of economic status in, 419;
new government of, pledged to allow liberty of conscience, 420 _ff._;
taxation in, under Andros, 424, 425;
surpassed by other colonies in population and volume of trade, 445
and _n._;
witchcraft delusion in, 451-456.
New England Company, settlement at Salem under first charter, 126 and
_n._;
46.
New England conscience, first consignment of, arrives on Mayflower, 97;
372.
New England town, origin of, 152;
universal in Puritan colonies on mainland, 153;
status of, 153, 154.
“New England Way,” in religion, 121, 254.
New Englanders, early, certain convictions of, 9;
how kept within bounds, 11, 12;
drawn out to sea, 12;
indifference of, to government, 443, 444.
New Hampshire, thinly settled, 5;
settlers in, 120;
Mason's share of province of Maine, 178;
growth of population in, 183, 224;
no settled government in, 216;
claims of Mass. to territory of, 216, 217;
absorbed by Mass., 228;
conditions in, under Mass., 317;
Mason's title to, confirmed, 324, 325, 376;
Mass. reasserts her claim to, 335;
Randolph in, 379;
Mass. ordered to withdraw from government of, which is vested in
Crown, 389;
new government of, the first royal government in New England, 399
_ff._;
complications caused by Mason title to, 399 _ff._;
breakdown of attempt to govern by local officials, 401;
form of government modified, 402;
Cranfield as governor of, 402 _ff._;
Dudley governor of, 408, 409;
Indian depredations in, 437;
given separate government in new dispensation, 449, 450 _n._;
215, 243, 339, 361.
New Harbor (Pemaquid), settlement at, 109.
New Haven, settled, 206;
founders of, 206;
reactionary provisions of fundamental agreement, 208;
absorbed by Connecticut, 208;
financial condition of, 221;
and the Dutch, 236, 237;
savage laws against Quakers in, 268;
Sylvester's complaint against, 314, 315 and _n._;
wiped out by Connecticut charter, 318;
element in, disaffected to theocracy, 319, 320;
Indian attacks on, 427;
209, 215, 226, 227, 234, 235.
New Jersey, religious freedom in, 276;
united to New England under Andros, 413.
New Netherland, acquisition of, by English, 312, 315, 316, 330;
boundary of, 332;
318.
New Testament, the, in Puritan theology, 82.
New York, cost of carriage of merchandise in, 7;
Nicolls first Governor of, 330;
English authority established at, 336;
united to New England under Andros, 413;
439.
Newburyport, 104.
Newcastle, Duke of, 389, 413.
Newfoundland, fisheries of, 28, 285;
59, 120, 280.
Newfoundland Company, 46.
Newport, settled, 185;
247, 249.
Newton, Isaac, 371, 453.
Newtown, elections removed to, from Boston, 169;
155.
Nicolls, Richard, first Governor of New York, 330;
advice of, as to Mass., 336;
331.
Nipmucks, destroy Brookfield, 354.
“No taxation without representation,” 302, 303, 387, 388, 449.
Noddle's Island, settlement on, 109.
Noell, Martin, 296, 297 _n._
Non-church members, in New England, 144, 145, 212-214, 262.
Nonconformist, and Puritan, 65, 66.
North America, three contestants for empire in, 28, 29, 41 _ff._
North and South Virginia Companies, 46.
Northampton, Mass., 360.
Northfield, Mass., destroyed by Indians, 354, 355;
339.
Northwest Passage Company, 46.
Norton, Rev. John, as Puritan leader, 258, 259;
and Quakers, 268, 269, 270;
323, 430.
Norwalk, Conn., 206.
Norwich, England, 123.
Nottingham, Earl of, 455.
Nova Scotia. _See_ Acadia, Port Royal.
Nowell, Increase, 128.
Nowell, Samuel, appointed agent of Mass., 390.
Noyes, Rev. Nicholas, 454.
Oakes, Uriah, 371.
Oath of Supremacy, 71.
Old Connecticut Path, 20 and _n._
Old Providence, attempt to found colony at, 125;
colony planted at, 134, 135;
threatened emigration from New England to, 223, 224;
141, 194.
Old Testament, the Puritans' delight, 80.
Oldham, John, character of, 106;
and Lyford, 107;
banished, 107;
murdered, 199, 200;
127 and _n._, 187.
Oliver, F. S., _Alexander Hamilton_, quoted, 293.
Opportunism, 70.
Orange, Prince of. _See_ William III.
Osgood, H. L., _American Colonies in the 17th Century_, quoted, 35
_n._, 217, 330, 338 _n._
Oyster River, 436.
Pacific Ocean, the Western boundary of Connecticut, as defined in
charter, 318.
_Pacte coloniale_, similar to modern trust, 284.
Palfrey, John G., _History of New England_, 201 _n._, 217 _n._, 260
_n._, 267, 338 _n._
Papists, excluded from England's demand for religious freedom in
colonies, 389.
Parkhurst, Anthony, quoted, 29 _n._
Parliament, Puritan members of, 75 and _n._;
takes permanent place among English institutions, 293;
control of colonies by, confined mostly to trade, 294;
non-representation of colonies in, 302, 303, 388;
issues commissions to privateers, 304, 305.
Parliamentary sovereignty, doctrine of, 293.
Parris, Rev. Samuel, 452, 454.
Parties, substitution of, for churches, as political forces, 310;
close connection of theology and, in Mass., 311.
Passamaquoddy Bay, 38.
Patents. _See_ Charters.
Patrick, Daniel, 203.
Patuxet, 249, 250.
Pawcatuck River, 250, 321.
Peckham, Sir George, 38.
Pecksuot (Indian), 105.
Pejebscot, 178.
Pelham, Sir William, quoted, 123 _n._
Pemaquid, fort, captured by Indians, 436;
178, 181, 335, 426.
And _see_ New Harbor.
Pennacook, 183.
Pennsylvania, cost of carriage of merchandise in, 7;
religious freedom in, 276.
Penobscot River, Pilgrim trading-post on, 180, 181,
seized by French, 181.
Pepys, Samuel, 372.
Pequot Harbor, 200.
Pequot war, 202, 203, 224, 339.
Pequots, and Narragansetts, 198, 199, 200;
Mass. and Narragansetts join hands against, 201;
outrages committed by, 201;
Connecticut declares war against, 202 _ff._;
annihilated, 203 _ff._;
their country thrown open to settlement, 206;
lands of, claimed by Mass., 250;
special laws for, in Connecticut, 343, 344.
Peter, Rev. Hugh, quoted, 204;
167.
Pettisquamscott, Narragansetts defeated at, 359 and _n._
Philip III, of Spain, 51, 58.
Philip, Wampanoag sachem, forced to give up arms of his people, 345,
347;
succeeds Alexander, 346;
charged with disloyalty, 346;
inevitable result of harsh terms imposed upon, 346, 347, 348;
his character and abilities, 348;
prepares for general uprising, 348;
Plymouth authorities informed of his plot, 351, 352;
escapes into central Mass., 353, 354;
war passes out of his control, 357, 358;
his breakdown as a leader, 361;
killed by Christian Indians, 361;
fate of his wife and son, 362.
Philip's War, 351-363.
Phips, Sir William, captured Port Royal, N. S., 438, 439;
first governor of Mass., under new charter, 451;
432, 440, 441, 454, 455.
Phratry, the, 18 _n._
Pierce, John, patents granted to, 93 and _n._;
under second patent becomes owner of land on which Plymouth stood,
105, 106;
sells out to Pilgrims, 106;
102, 104.
Pilgrims, the, at Leyden, 89 _ff._;
their motives in leaving Holland, 90;
without means for emigration, 90;
uncertainty of, as to their destination, 91;
send emissaries to London, 91, 92;
attitude of James I toward, 92;
efforts of, to raise money, 93;
agreement of, with Weston and others, 93 _ff._;
leave Holland for England, and sail from Plymouth on Mayflower, 95,
96;
at Provincetown, 97;
a mixed lot, 97;
London element among, 98;
Mayflower Compact signed by, 98;
found a pure democracy, later modified, 98;
land at Plymouth, 99 and _n._;
their enterprise made possible by capital subscribed in London, 99;
the Scrooby leaven, 99;
make treaty with Samoset, 101;
and friendly Indians, 101, 102;
first trading voyage to Mass. Bay, 102;
obtain grant of land on Cape Ann, 108, 109;
outnumbered by other settlers, 109;
and Puritans, distinction between, 129;
settlements in Maine occupied by, 180;
and the Dutch, 187, 188;
send expeditions to Connecticut River, 187;
forced to yield land at Windsor, 190, 191;
claims by Mass. to Maine lands, in conflict with, 218.
And _see_ Bradford, W., Plymouth Colony, Scrooby.
Piscataqua River, settlements on, 108 and _n._;
178, 385.
Plastrier, Captain, 54, 55.
Plumbers Hall, 64.
Pluralism, 74, 75.
Plymouth, England, 96.
Plymouth, Mass., Pilgrims land at, 99 and _n._;
first buildings at, 99;
sickness at, 100;
visit of Samoset to, 100;
“perticulers” at, 106, 107;
Christmas sports at, 110, 111.
Plymouth colony, Bible and beaver the mainstays of, 102;
new recruits for, 102, 103;
challenged by Narragansetts, 103;
the largest single settlement in New England until 1830, 103;
and Weston's new settlement at Wessagussett, 104, 105;
buys out Pierce, 106;
financial condition of, 113;
failure of common-stock theory in, 113;
location of, poor for Indian trade, 114;
forced to resort to coasting voyages for skins, 114;
abandoned by London Adventurers, 114, 116;
capital secured by, 115;
interference of outsiders with trade of, 116;
new patent granted to, confirming holdings on Kennebec, 116;
Mayflower Compact continued in force, 116;
franchise in, 172;
dispute with Mass. over Hocking incident, 178, 179;
Mass. asks aid of, against Indians, 202;
prosperity of, 221;
treatment of Quakers in, 268, 275;
relation of, to England, 306;
“Praying Indians” in, 345;
and Alexander, 346;
harsh terms imposed on Philip by, 346, 347;
raising troops in, 351, 355 _n._;
war expenses of, 363;
schools in, 369;
Andros governor of, 411;
resumes former government after Revolution, 433, 444;
joined with Mass. under charter of 1691, 449;
226, 227, 333, 339, 344, 349, 352, 439.
Plymouth Company, provided for in Virginia charter, 48;
territory granted to, includes New England, 48;
operations of, under patent, 40 _ff._;
makes John Smith Admiral of New England for life, 60;
superseded by the “Council established at Plymouth in the County of
Devon,” 62, 63.
Plymouth Harbor, 37.
Pocasset, 352.
Political disabilities due to religious test for franchise, 254.
Popham, Sir Francis, 52, 54.
Popham, George, founds settlement on Sagadahoc (Kennebec) River, 50 and
_n._, 51;
48.
Popham, Sir John, sends vessel to New England, 50;
his death, 52;
48, 49 and _n._
_Popham Memorial_, 52 _n._
Popish Plot, the, 389.
Popular assembly, denied to New England under Dudley government, 410,
411,
and under Andros government, 414, 424;
universal demand for, 434.
Port Royal, N. S., Poutrincourt returns to, 53, 54;
burned by Argall, 56;
captured by Phips, 438, 439;
180.
Portland, harbor of, 5.
Portsmouth, N. H., harbor of, 5;
founded, 108;
178, 181, 217 _n._
Portsmouth, R. I., settled, 185;
247, 249.
Portugal, and import trade from the East, 29;
conquest of, by Spain, 32.
Poutrincourt, Jean de, 53, 54.
Povey, Thomas, 296, 297 _n._
“Praying Indians,” number and distribution of, 345, 346;
mistaken policy of Mass. regarding, 356, 357;
354.
Predestination, doctrine of, 77, 78.
Presbyterian discipline, Puritans seek to substitute, for established
form, 76.
Press, censorship of, in Mass., 370.
Pring, Martin, 37, 40.
Privateering, 42, 43.
Privy Council, and the Scrooby fugitives, 88;
Gorges's petition to, 156, 157;
329.
Probate of wills, etc., in Mass., 423, 424.
Providence, R. I., settled, 184, 185;
appeals to Mass. in Gorton case, 219;
under jurisdiction of Mass., 220, 228;
247, 360.
Providence Company, 46.
Provincetown, Mayflower arrives at, 97.
Purchas, Samuel, 50 _n._, 54 _n._
Puritan, derivation of word, 64;
includes Separatist and Non-conformist, 65.
Puritan casuistry, example of, 232.
Puritan clergy, gifts of livings to, 72, 73;
their learning, 73;
pay of, 75;
inordinate length of sermons of, 421.
Puritan leaders, intend to govern independently of England, 155;
their motives considered, 162, 163;
their ruthless action not to be excused, 172;
criticized by their friends in England, 172, 173;
in Mass., and in England, 195 _ff._;
increase of religious liberty dreaded by, 323.
And _see_ Puritans.
Puritan party, rise of, 84;
emigration to Mass., 118, 119.
Puritanism, essentially a movement of protest, 81, 82, 83;
its domination a misfortune, 83, 84;
the reasoned expression of the middle-class state of mind, 85;
second victory of, and its consequences, 111;
balance of good and evil of, 111, 112;
in Bermuda, 112;
why it flourished in New England, 112;
not the only successful colonizing force, 119;
influence of New England form of, 121;
in England, 124;
unhealthy growth of, in New England, 174.
Puritans, and ethics, 8, 81, 82;
conservative, half-way policy of, 68;
and the Church of England, 70, 71;
their struggle for control, not for toleration, 71, 72, 74;
a small minority of both clergy and laity, 73;
fanaticism among, 74;
wished to adopt Presbyterian form of government, 76;
nature of their struggle with the Church of England, 76, 77, 78;
Calvinism and, 77, 78;
obsessed by religious questions, 78;
deemed themselves elect, 78, 79;
and the reign of law, 79;
rely on God's will, as revealed by Scriptures to them alone, 79;
in spirit almost Jews, 80;
their God the God of the Old Testament, 80, 82;
sayings of Christ disregarded by, 80 and _n._;
status of the devil in their doctrine, 82;
and the New Testament, 82;
their virtues mainly negations, 82;
their political beliefs, 83;
social and blood ties between, 124, 125;
and Pilgrims, distinction between, 129;
persecution of, by Court party, 134;
and the Mass. charter, 142;
objects of, in coming to Mass., 142, 143;
and the unenfranchised class, 144;
and T. Morton, 148, 149;
their morbid interest in indecent sexual matters, 265 _n._;
their violent language, 270 _n._;
and Quakers, 264;
again in opposition under Andros, 422;
their changed attitude as to what constitutes tyranny, 422, 423.
Pym, John, 137, 196, 197, 223.
Pyncheon, William, quoted, 155.
Pynchon, John, 308, 354, 355, 356, 409, 416.
Quakers, in 17th century, 263;
specially obnoxious to Puritan leaders in Mass., 263, 264;
their beliefs, 264;
persecution of, in Mass., 264 _ff._;
how treated in Rhode Island and elsewhere, 266, 275, 276;
267;
reaction in favor of, 268, 269, 272;
proceedings against, halted by Charles II, 273, 274 and _n._,
but renewed, 274;
brutal law against, revived in Mass., 323;
313, 314, 322.
Quebec, founded, 38;
seized by Kirk, 180;
French college at, 369;
unsuccessful naval expedition against, 440, 441.
Quincy, Mass. _See_ Mt. Wollaston.
Quinnipiack, 207, 226.
Quit-rents levied in Maine by Mass., 386;
and the sale of unallotted and other lands in New England, 418, 419.
_Quo Warranto_ proceedings, against charter of Mass., threatened, 385,
begun, 393, and abandoned, 394;
to cancel charters of Rhode Island and Connecticut, 412, 413.
Raleigh, Sir Walter, and Gosnold, 36, 37;
68.
Randolph, Edward, sent as special messenger to Mass., 377;
his character and views, 377;
how treated in Mass., 377, 378 and _n._;
in New Hampshire, 379;
his report to Laws of Trade, 379 and _n._;
his charges and recommendations, 381;
appointed Collector of Customs in New England, 385, 386;
obstructed in his duties, 389;
brings royal letters to Mass., 391;
suggests temporary government of New England, 408;
dissatisfaction of, with Dudley government, 411;
quoted, 373 _n._, 407 and _n._;
384, 393, 403, 405, 406, 409, 410, 413, 417, 420, 423, 424, 427, 429,
432.
Ratcliffe, Philip, mutilated and banished, 151;
156.
Ratcliffe, Rev. Robert, 420.
Ray, John, 371.
Razilly, Claude de, 232.
“Reasons for raising a fund,” influence of, in grant of Virginia
Charter, 45, 46.
Reformation, the, 84, 364.
Religion, Puritan imagination concentrated on questions of, 78;
shades of, in Mass., 129, 130;
and politics, in Puritan state, 143;
superseded by commerce, as prime influence in politics, etc., 366.
Religious liberty, government of Rhode Island based on, 252, 253;
trend toward, 262, 263;
progress in, 275, 276;
bigoted opposition to, in Mass., 277;
increase of, how regarded by theocracy, 323.
Religious test for franchise, abandoned in Mass. charter of 1691, 447.
And _see_ Franchise.
Religious toleration, not seriously considered except in Holland, 118;
denial of, in New England, inevitable, 143;
non-existent in Mass., 174;
denied by church synod, 256, 257;
in Mass., under new government, 420 _ff._;
389.
Rents, in England, rise of, 123.
Restoration of the Stuarts, not inimical to interests of liberty and
the colonies, 246;
changes following the, 278;
extent of British Empire at, 279, 280;
marks beginning of modern English, 311,
and of American history, 316;
252, 293, 295, 309, 364.
Reyce, Robert, quoted, 123 _n._, 124 _n._
Rhode Island, land locked waters of, 6;
settlers in, 120;
franchise in, 172;
founders of, opposed to policies of Mass., 183, 184;
R. Williams the true founder of, 184, 185;
first settlements in, 184, 185;
character of emigrants to, 195.
Rhode Island colony, founded by charter of 1644, 185;
contrast between Mass. and, 185, 186;
functions of General Assembly of, 186;
defects of form of government, 186, 187;
growth of population of, 224;
ill-feeling of Mass. against, 227, 228;
sends privateers against Dutch, 237;
Mass. policy of annexation set back in, 247-250;
protests arrest of her citizens at Stonington, 251;
internal government of, firmly established, 252;
kindly treatment of Quakers in, 266, 267, 275, 277;
relation of, to England, 306;
proclaims free trade with Dutch, 313;
proclaims Charles II, 317;
and Connecticut, 320, 321;
obtains new charter, 320;
in danger of annihilation, 325;
boundaries of, 332;
given jurisdiction over King's Province, 332, 333;
population of, in 1675, 338;
towns destroyed in, 363;
schools in, 369 _n._;
seeks establishment of Supreme Court over all New England, 387;
charter of, canceled, 412;
added to jurisdiction of Andros, 412;
resumes former government after Revolution, 433, 434;
209, 215, 226, 227, 231, 318, 336.
Rich, Sir Nathaniel, 125, 133, 134, 138, 141.
Richards, John appointed agent of Mass., 390, 392.
And _see_ Dudley, Joseph, and Richards.
Richelieu River, 4.
Richmond's Island, 178.
Rigby, Alexander, 244.
Rivers, as boundaries, 1;
only means of communication with interior in America, 6.
Robinson, John, his early history, 86;
minister of church at Leyden, 89, 90;
his parting address to Pilgrims, 95, 96;
71, 92, 146.
Robinson, William, Quaker, 271, 272.
Rochelle, fall of, 118.
Rocroft, Captain, 61.
Roman law, and right of discovery, 41.
Rome, fear of her influence, 427, 428, 429.
Rosewell, Sir Henry, 127.
Roxbury, 140, 190.
Royal Commission sent to New England, members of, 330 and _n._;
instructions to, 330, 331;
at Boston, 331 _ff._;
answers of General Court to charges and requests of, 333, 334;
letter of, to Mass., 334, 335;
in New Hampshire and Maine, 335;
establishes English authority at New York, 336;
result of their mission in New England, 336;
recommendations of, as to Mass., 336.
Sabino, settlement planted by Gilbert and Popham at, 50;
settlement at, abandoned, 50.
Sachem, office of, 17.
Saco, 244, 436.
Sagadahoc (Kennebec) River. _See_ Sabino.
St. Castine, Baron de, 426.
St. Croix Island, de Monts and Champlain settle at, 38, 39;
settlement broken up, by Argall, 55.
St. Croix (West Indies), 119, 120.
St. George, fort, 50.
St. George's Island, 38.
St. George's River, settlement on, 109;
38 and _n._;
St. Germain, treaty of, 180, 232.
St. Helena, 280, 285.
St. Kitts, 119, 120, 134.
St. Lawrence River, 3, 6, 426.
St. Loe, Captain, 411.
St. Sauveur, colony founded by Mme. de Guercheville at, 55,
broken up by Argall, 55.
Salem, charter granted to Puritan settlement at, 125, 126;
limits of land grant conflict with those of other patents, 126;
new arrivals at, 127 and _n._;
and deaths at, 140;
R. Williams teacher of church at, 163;
forced to expel Williams, 164;
polity of church at, and growth of Congregationalism, 130;
covenant of church at, 131;
church at, refuses to join synod, 255;
and the witchcraft delusion, 454;
104, 382.
Salmon Falls, massacre at, 437.
Saltonstall, Sir Richard, quoted, on religious intolerance in Mass.,
261;
128, 138, 161, 181, 196, 232, 321, 409.
_Salus populi, suprema lex_, 306, 310.
Samoset, Sachem, visits Plymouth, 100, 101.
Sandys, Sir Edwin, and the Pilgrims' project of emigration, 91, 92;
treasurer of Virginia Co., 92;
62, 133.
Sandys, Sir Samuel, 91.
Sassachus, Pequot Sachem, 203.
Sassamon, John, discloses Indian plot, 351;
murdered, 351.
Savage, James, 187 _n._
Saving remnant, doctrine of the, 73, 74.
Say and Sele, Lord, letter to Winthrop, quoted, 223;
125, 143, 167, 179, 181, 191, 195, 196, 197, 217, 222.
Saybrook, Conn., settled, 196;
Indian murders at, 201;
200, 202, 215, 226, 242.
Scalping, practice of, 15, 16.
Schenectady, massacre at, 37.
Schmoller, E., quoted, 290.
_Scire Facias_, writ of, against Mass. charter brings judgment of
annulment, 394 and _n._
Scrooby, independent church at, 86 and _n._;
persecution of members of, 87, 88,
who decide to flee to Holland, but are arrested, 88;
finally reach Amsterdam, 88;
remove to Leyden, 89;
their life there, 89 _ff._
Sea, influence of, on discovery and settlement of new lands, 11, 12.
Sea-power and an ocean empire, 291.
Seal, importance of, in grants of land, 417, 418.
Selden, John, 134.
Semple, Ellen C., quoted, 10.
Sempringham, England, 138 and _n._
Senegal, 285.
Separatism, and the Pilgrims, 129;
and the Puritans, 130.
Separatists, and Puritans, 65, 67;
their action logical and courageous, 68;
number of, 68.
Sequasson, and Uncas, 239, 240.
Settlers, early, in America, in no sense Americans, 316.
Sewall, Samuel, and the Dudley government, 411;
quoted, 407, 421 and _n._, 422;
372.
Shamans. _See_ Medicine-men.
Shattuck, Samuel, Quaker, 273, 274.
Shawmut, settlement at, 109.
Sheepscot, settlement at, 109;
178.
Sheffield, Lord, 108.
Shepard, Thomas, 372, 373.
Shipping, in New England, 286.
Shoals, Isles of, 5.
Six-mile Island, Indian murders at, 201.
Skelton, Rev. Samuel, pastor of Salem church, 127, 131.
Smith, John, at Jamestown, 49;
his character, 57;
on New England Coast, 57, 58;
his map the beginning of modern New England cartography, 58;
his _Description_, 58;
carries fish and furs to London, 59;
made Admiral of New England for life, 60;
54 _n._, 94, 370.
Smith, Richard, 265 _n._;
Smythe, Sir Thomas, 62.
Somers Islands. _See_ Bermuda.
South Carolina, religious freedom in, 276.
South Meeting-house (Boston), 421.
Southampton, Earl of, 36, 37, 54.
Southampton, England, Pilgrims at, 96.
Southampton, L. I., 206.
Southcott, Thomas, 127.
Southern colonies, comparative value of land in, and in New England, 9.
Southerton. _See_ Stonington.
Southold, 206.
Southwell, Sir Robert, 409.
Southwick, Daniel, 268, 270, 271.
Southwick, Provided, 268, 270, 271.
Sovereignty, theory of later Stuarts as to, 365, 366;
location of, the main question in old and New England, 374, 375.
“Sow” case, 212.
Spain, possessions of, in South America, 29, 42 and _n._;
conquest of Mexico by, 29;
oriental trade in hands of, 29;
and England under Elizabeth, 30, 31;
extravagant pretensions of, after conquest of Portugal, challenged by
Elizabeth, 32;
claims all of North America, 41;
treaty of 1604 with England, 42;
and English settlements in Virginia and Maine, 50, 51.
Speedwell, the, takes Pilgrims from Holland to England, 95, 96;
left in England, 96.
Spice Islands, 285.
Springfield, Mass., destroyed by Indians, 356;
242, 354.
Squanto (Indian), faithful friend of settlers, death of, 105;
59, 60, 61, 101, 102, 103.
Stagg, Captain, 304.
Stamford, 206.
Standish, Myles, in Mayflower's company, 97;
not a Puritan, 97;
his character, 97;
102, 105, 107, 113, 114, 115, 116, 179.
Stansby, ——, 172.
State, theory of the, 374.
States (of the U. S.), artificial character of boundaries of, 1;
histories of, localized, 1.
Stevenson, Mamaduke, Quaker, 271, 272.
Stone, Samuel, at Newtown, 189;
murdered by Pequots, 198, 199, 200.
Stoneman, John, 49 _n._
Stonington, declared to be part of Suffolk Co., Mass., 250;
clash between Mass. and Rhode Island at, 251.
Stoughton, William, agent of Mass. in England, 380 _ff._;
presides at trials of “witches,” 454;
345, 368, 369, 390, 391, 392, 409, 416, 424, 429, 451.
Stratford, 206.
Strawberry Bank, 217 _n._
Strong, Richard, 36.
Stuarts, the, and the colonies, 296, 309;
and Parliament, 366;
colonial policy of, 366;
399.
Stuyvesant, Peter, as negotiator, 235, 236;
charged with inciting Indians to attack colonies, 237;
313_n._
Sudbury, 360.
Sugar, 285.
Sumatra, 280.
Supreme Court of Judicature over all New England, suggested by Rhode
Island, 387.
Swally, battle of, 56.
Swansea, Indian murders at, 352.
Sylvester, Giles, and New Haven, 314, 315 and _n._
Synod, convoked to consider religious problems, 255 _ff._;
adopts Cambridge Platform, 256.
Taxation, controversy over, between Mass. and Connecticut, 242, 243;
enforcement of general bill concerning, under Andros, resisted in
Essex County, Mass., 425;
152, 172, 383, 387, 388, 410, 424.
And _see_ No taxation without representation.
Taxes, levying of, under Mass. charter, 152.
Taylor, Jeremy, 371.
Thames River (Conn.), 340.
Theocracy, the, fundamental idea of, 311;
and the struggle for intellectual and political freedom, 329;
interpretation of Mass. charter by, inconsistent with spirit of
liberty, 395;
results of efforts to perpetuate, 395, 396.
And _see_ Clergy, Puritan leaders.
Theology, and politics, close connection of, 311.
Thompson, David, settles at mouth of Piscataqua, 108 and _n._,
on Thompson's Island, 109;
115.
Thompson's Island, 109.
Thorne, Robert, 31.
Timber, in New England, 9, 11.
Time, element of, 368.
Tithes, commutation of, 74, 75.
Tobacco culture in England, 300 and _n._;
285.
Tobago, 367.
Toleration Act, 276.
Tordesillas, treaty of, 41.
Totems, 18.
Town, the, unit of Southern New England frontier, 339, 340;
and country, conflict of economic interests, etc., between, 373, 374.
Town-government system of Mass., extra-legal under old charter, 450.
Town-meetings, law limiting holding of, 426;
152, 154, 396, 397, 456.
Towns, land granted to, in chartered colonies, 417;
titles of, not valid, 417, 418;
under new charter, 425, 426.
Trade, monopoly of, in colonial charters, 34;
with Indians, and Plymouth, 114;
and shipping, ordinances for control of, 298 _ff._
And _see_ Commerce.
Trade routes, early, 4 and _n._;
policed by England, 289 _n._
Transoceanic Empires of 17th century, a new type, 280.
Treat, Robert, 355, 356, 416.
Trelawney, Robert, 184 _n._, 244.
Tribe, the, 19.
Trinidad, 367.
“True and Sincere Declaration, A” (Jamestown), 61.
Turner, Frederick J., quoted, 224.
Tyng, Jonathan, 409, 416.
Uncas, Mohegan sachem, and Sequasson, sequel of quarrel between, 239,
240;
and Miantanomo, 240, 241;
204, 205, 358.
Underhill, John, 202, 203, 217.
Uniformity, Act of, 311, 312.
United Colonies of New England, nature of government of, 229;
existence of England ignored by, 229;
defects of, 229;
did valuable service, 229, 230;
largely dominated by Mass., 230;
conditions in, 1643 to 1660, 231, 232;
dealings of, with Dutch, 234, 235, 237;
weakened by abstention of Mass., 238;
declare war on Dutch, 238;
and the case of Miantanomo, 240, 241;
action of, criticized, 241;
Mass. refuses to accept decision of, in tax dispute with Connecticut,
242, 243;
weakness of bond between members, 245, 349, 350;
undertake to settle dispute concerning Gorton's lands, 248, 249;
urge death penalty for Quakers, 268;
new Articles of Confederation, 355 _n._;
raise more troops, 355, 358, 359, 360.
United States, sectional divisions of, 2.
Unity, religious, 66.
“Unspottyd Lambs,” 64, 74.
Upshall, Nicholas, Quaker, 266.
Usher, Elizabeth, 436.
Usher, Roland G., 87 _n._
Vane, Sir Harry, Governor of Mass., a follower of Ann Hutchinson, 167,
168;
fails of reëlection, 168;
deputy for Boston, 167;
returns to England, 170;
pleads for religious liberty, 275;
173, 249.
Vassall, William, 214.
Vaughan, William, 400.
Venezuela, 43.
Verrazano, Giovanni da, voyages of, 28.
Vines, Richard, 60.
Virginia, charter of, issued in 1606, 46;
provides for two colonies, 48;
settlers in, 120;
fewer common schools, but wider culture in, 370;
285, 367.
And _see_ London Company, Plymouth Company.
Virginia, North, events in, 52 _ff._
Virginia Company, approves the Pilgrims' project, 92;
dissensions in, 92;
33, 128.
Virginia House of Burgesses, 154.
Wakefield, Gibbon, 119.
Waldron, Richard, 361, 400.
Walley, John, 440, 441.
Walton, Izaak, 371.
Warwick, Earl of, 72, 125, 126, 133, 134, 138, 141, 149, 184 _n._, 191,
195, 196, 197, 217.
Warwick, R. I., settled, 185;
247, 248, 249.
Wash, neighborhood of, the special area of emigration, 122 _ff._;
Puritanism in, 124, 125.
Watertown, church at, 143;
town-meeting of May, 1689, 435;
140, 155, 190.
Weetamoo, squaw sachem, warns English of Philip's plot, 352.
Welde, Thomas, 263 _n._
Wells, Maine, 245.
Wenicunnett. _See_ Hampton.
Wessagussett, Weston's settlement at, abandoned, 105;
permanent settlement at, 108.
West, Captain, Admiral of New England, 106.
West, John, 423, 424.
West Indian colonies, more important than continental ones, 46;
effect of limited area of, 175.
West Indies (English), trade relations of, with England and New
England, 286, 287;
285, 312.
West Indies (French), trade relations with New England, 287.
Westminster Confession, adopted by church synod, 256.
Weston, Thomas, and associates, agreement with Pilgrims for joint-stock
company, 93, 94;
procures separate patent for himself, 104, 105;
ruined, becomes a trader at Plymouth, 105;
96, 102.
Wethersfield, Indian outrages at, 201;
191, 192.
Weymouth, George, 37, 38, 40.
Whalley, Edward, regicide, 314.
Wharton, Lord, 432.
Wheeler, Thomas, 354, and _n._
Wheelwright, John, disfranchised and banished from Mass., 170;
founds Exeter, 182 and _n._;
165, 166, 167, 183, 210.
White, Rev. John, quoted, 172;
124, 126, 136.
White Mountains, 4.
Whitney, J. D., quoted, 9.
Wigglesworth, Michael, 206, 371.
Willard, Simon, 354.
William III, effect in Boston of news of his landing in England, 428,
429;
and the colonies, 431, 432;
445.
Williams, Roger, _A Key into the Language of America_, 20;
and Cotton, 129;
his character, 163;
teacher of Salem church, 163;
his doctrine as to power of magistrates, 163;
advocates religious toleration, 164, 165;
attacks validity of charter, 164;
banished from the colony, 164;
escapes to Indians in Rhode Island, 165;
had few adherents, 165;
his expulsion a great loss, 165;
founder of colony of Rhode Island, 184, 252;
makes peace between Narragansetts and colonies, 201,
ingratitude of Mass. toward, 201 and _n._;
quoted, 185, 204, 343;
71, 125, 146, 147, 195, 199, 202, 220, 227, 240, 241, 247, 248, 249,
260, 362.
Williams, Captain, 54.
Wilson, Rev. John, 167, 172, 260, 261.
Wincob, Jacob, patentee, 92 and _n._
Windsor, Conn., settled by Pilgrims, 188;
Dorchester men and Pilgrims at, 190, 191;
192.
Winslow, Edward, imprisoned, 158;
quoted, 90, 100, 103, 215;
101 and _n._, 115, 116, 158, 164, 179.
Winslow, John, 428.
Winslow, Josiah, Governor of Plymouth, commands expedition against
Narragansetts, 359 and _n._;
314 _n._, 346, 349 _n._
Winter, ——, 184 _n._, 244.
Winthrop, Fitz-John, commands expedition against Canada, 439 _ff._;
409, 416, 429.
Winthrop, Henry, 135.
Winthrop, John, his character, 135, 137;
a Puritan, 135;
his reasons for emigrating, 136, 137, 138;
elected governor of Mass., 140, 145, 169;
goes to America with settlers, 140;
and R. Williams, 164;
abandons lenient course, 167;
and T. Hooker, 193, 194;
opposes limitation of judicial authority, 211;
on the “sow” case, 212;
and the expedition to Acadia, 232, 233;
death of, 258;
his character and services considered, 258, 259;
quoted, 240, 241, 255, 256, 307, 308;
79, 119, 121, 125, 134, 139, 141, 142, 143, 147, 148, 149, 150, 155,
156 and _n._, 160, 161, 162, 170, 171, 172, 173, 174, 179, 185,
187, 189, 195, 196, 204, 213, 214, 215, 221, 222, 223, 225, 227,
228, 315.
Winthrop, John, of Connecticut, quoted, 268 and _n._
Winthrop, John, Jr., Governor of Connecticut, 318;
as colony's agent in England, procures charter, 318;
167, 173, 191, 196, 199, 201, 320.
Winthrop, Robert C., 136 _n._
Winthrop, Stephen, quoted, 172, 173.
Winthrop, Wait, 409, 416, 433.
Wise, John, punished for refusing to pay taxes, 425.
Wissler, Clark, quoted, 22.
Witchcraft delusion, the, in New England, 451-456.
Wolfe, James, 54.
Wollaston, Captain, and Thomas Morton at Mt. Wollaston, 109, 110;
goes to Virginia, 110.
Wood, William, 371.
Wood Creek, 440.
Wyborne, John, 344 _n._, 376.
Yale, David, 206, 213.
York, Commissioners of Province of, 87.
York, County of, organized, 245.
York, Duke of, 335.
And _see_ James II.
York, Maine, settlement at, 108, 178, 244.
Younge, Sir John, 127.
Zuniga, Pedro de, Marques de Villa Flores et Avila, 50, 51.
MCGRATH-SHERRILL PRESS
GRAPHIC ARTS BLDG.
BOSTON
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Transcriber’s Note
In the Index, an entry may _end_, after one or more subtopics, with a
list of general references, contrary to the more common practice, where
those general references precede any subtopics. On one occasion,
(Keaynes and the “sow case”), the semi-colon seems to be an error, since
the page sequence is retained, and all refer to that topic.
Spelling in quoted material is frequently not modern, and only noted
(but not corrected) when suspicious.
John Clarke of Rhode Island is mentioned on p. 258 and in footnote 656
is 'John Clark'. To avoid confusion, each instance has been corrected.
Several words appear midline both hypenated and unhyphenated
(breakdown/break-down, foreshadow, fore-shadow,
bloodthirsty/blood-thirsty) and both are retained. Where a is hyphenated
only on a line break, the hyphen is removed if there is another instance
midline without it.
Errors deemed most likely to be the printer’s have been corrected, and
are noted here. The lion's share of those are small inconsistencies of
punctuation in the footnotes. The references are to the page and line in
the original.
130.37 _Narraganset Club Publica[t]ions_ Inserted.
184.13 The lands around Narra[n]gansett Bay Removed.
195.36 in the Car[ri/ib]ean Caribbean Replaced.
205.28 of the Puritan planters[.] Added.
225.33 of a genuine union[.] Added.
236.38 New Haven[ /’]s complaint Replaced.
259.19 John Clark[e] Added.
259.27 Clark[e] was fined £20 Added.
259.30 Clark[e], having asked Added.
260.29 John Clark[e] Added.
263.27 unparallel[l]ed torrents of abuse Removed.
387.18 “not reach [Amerrica],” _sic._
402.28 that Bla[t]hwayt consented Inserted.
454.31 superstitious fan[a]ticism Inserted.
462.55 his chara[ca]cter Removed.
469.49 provided for in Virgi[a]nia charter Removed.
480.29 with Indians, and P[l]ymouth Inserted.
481.21 pleads for religio[n/u]s liberty Inverted.
*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE FOUNDING OF NEW ENGLAND ***
Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will
be renamed.
Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright
law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works,
so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United
States without permission and without paying copyright
royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part
of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project
Gutenberg™ electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG™
concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark,
and may not be used if you charge for an eBook, except by following
the terms of the trademark license, including paying royalties for use
of the Project Gutenberg trademark. If you do not charge anything for
copies of this eBook, complying with the trademark license is very
easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose such as creation
of derivative works, reports, performances and research. Project
Gutenberg eBooks may be modified and printed and given away—you may
do practically ANYTHING in the United States with eBooks not protected
by U.S. copyright law. Redistribution is subject to the trademark
license, especially commercial redistribution.
START: FULL LICENSE
THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
To protect the Project Gutenberg™ mission of promoting the free
distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase “Project
Gutenberg”), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full
Project Gutenberg™ License available with this file or online at
www.gutenberg.org/license.
Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg™
electronic works
1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg™
electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all
the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or
destroy all copies of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works in your
possession. If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a
Project Gutenberg™ electronic work and you do not agree to be bound
by the terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person
or entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
1.B. “Project Gutenberg” is a registered trademark. It may only be
used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few
things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg™ electronic works
even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See
paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project
Gutenberg™ electronic works if you follow the terms of this
agreement and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg™
electronic works. See paragraph 1.E below.
1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation (“the
Foundation” or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection
of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works. Nearly all the individual
works in the collection are in the public domain in the United
States. If an individual work is unprotected by copyright law in the
United States and you are located in the United States, we do not
claim a right to prevent you from copying, distributing, performing,
displaying or creating derivative works based on the work as long as
all references to Project Gutenberg are removed. Of course, we hope
that you will support the Project Gutenberg™ mission of promoting
free access to electronic works by freely sharing Project Gutenberg™
works in compliance with the terms of this agreement for keeping the
Project Gutenberg™ name associated with the work. You can easily
comply with the terms of this agreement by keeping this work in the
same format with its attached full Project Gutenberg™ License when
you share it without charge with others.
1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are
in a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States,
check the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this
agreement before downloading, copying, displaying, performing,
distributing or creating derivative works based on this work or any
other Project Gutenberg™ work. The Foundation makes no
representations concerning the copyright status of any work in any
country other than the United States.
1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other
immediate access to, the full Project Gutenberg™ License must appear
prominently whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg™ work (any work
on which the phrase “Project Gutenberg” appears, or with which the
phrase “Project Gutenberg” is associated) is accessed, displayed,
performed, viewed, copied or distributed:
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most
other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online
at www.gutenberg.org. If you
are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws
of the country where you are located before using this eBook.
1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg™ electronic work is
derived from texts not protected by U.S. copyright law (does not
contain a notice indicating that it is posted with permission of the
copyright holder), the work can be copied and distributed to anyone in
the United States without paying any fees or charges. If you are
redistributing or providing access to a work with the phrase “Project
Gutenberg” associated with or appearing on the work, you must comply
either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 or
obtain permission for the use of the work and the Project Gutenberg™
trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg™ electronic work is posted
with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any
additional terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms
will be linked to the Project Gutenberg™ License for all works
posted with the permission of the copyright holder found at the
beginning of this work.
1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg™
License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg™.
1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
Gutenberg™ License.
1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including
any word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access
to or distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg™ work in a format
other than “Plain Vanilla ASCII” or other format used in the official
version posted on the official Project Gutenberg™ website
(www.gutenberg.org), you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense
to the user, provide a copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means
of obtaining a copy upon request, of the work in its original “Plain
Vanilla ASCII” or other form. Any alternate format must include the
full Project Gutenberg™ License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg™ works
unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
access to or distributing Project Gutenberg™ electronic works
provided that:
• You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
the use of Project Gutenberg™ works calculated using the method
you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is owed
to the owner of the Project Gutenberg™ trademark, but he has
agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments must be paid
within 60 days following each date on which you prepare (or are
legally required to prepare) your periodic tax returns. Royalty
payments should be clearly marked as such and sent to the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the address specified in
Section 4, “Information about donations to the Project Gutenberg
Literary Archive Foundation.”
• You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg™
License. You must require such a user to return or destroy all
copies of the works possessed in a physical medium and discontinue
all use of and all access to other copies of Project Gutenberg™
works.
• You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of
any money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days of
receipt of the work.
• You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
distribution of Project Gutenberg™ works.
1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project
Gutenberg™ electronic work or group of works on different terms than
are set forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing
from the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the manager of
the Project Gutenberg™ trademark. Contact the Foundation as set
forth in Section 3 below.
1.F.
1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
works not protected by U.S. copyright law in creating the Project
Gutenberg™ collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg™
electronic works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may
contain “Defects,” such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate
or corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other
intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or
other medium, a computer virus, or computer codes that damage or
cannot be read by your equipment.
1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the “Right
of Replacement or Refund” described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
Gutenberg™ trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
Gutenberg™ electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
DAMAGE.
1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you
received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium
with your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you
with the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in
lieu of a refund. If you received the work electronically, the person
or entity providing it to you may choose to give you a second
opportunity to receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If
the second copy is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing
without further opportunities to fix the problem.
1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you ‘AS-IS’, WITH NO
OTHER WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT
LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of
damages. If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement
violates the law of the state applicable to this agreement, the
agreement shall be interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or
limitation permitted by the applicable state law. The invalidity or
unenforceability of any provision of this agreement shall not void the
remaining provisions.
1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
providing copies of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works in
accordance with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the
production, promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg™
electronic works, harmless from all liability, costs and expenses,
including legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of
the following which you do or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this
or any Project Gutenberg™ work, (b) alteration, modification, or
additions or deletions to any Project Gutenberg™ work, and (c) any
Defect you cause.
Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg™
Project Gutenberg™ is synonymous with the free distribution of
electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of
computers including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It
exists because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations
from people in all walks of life.
Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg™’s
goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg™ collection will
remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
and permanent future for Project Gutenberg™ and future
generations. To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary
Archive Foundation and how your efforts and donations can help, see
Sections 3 and 4 and the Foundation information page at www.gutenberg.org.
Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non-profit
501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
Revenue Service. The Foundation’s EIN or federal tax identification
number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg Literary
Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent permitted by
U.S. federal laws and your state’s laws.
The Foundation’s business office is located at 809 North 1500 West,
Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887. Email contact links and up
to date contact information can be found at the Foundation’s website
and official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact
Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
Literary Archive Foundation
Project Gutenberg™ depends upon and cannot survive without widespread
public support and donations to carry out its mission of
increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
freely distributed in machine-readable form accessible by the widest
array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations
($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
status with the IRS.
The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations
where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To SEND
DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any particular state
visit www.gutenberg.org/donate.
While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
approach us with offers to donate.
International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
Please check the Project Gutenberg web pages for current donation
methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other
ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. To
donate, please visit: www.gutenberg.org/donate.
Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg™ electronic works
Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project
Gutenberg™ concept of a library of electronic works that could be
freely shared with anyone. For forty years, he produced and
distributed Project Gutenberg™ eBooks with only a loose network of
volunteer support.
Project Gutenberg™ eBooks are often created from several printed
editions, all of which are confirmed as not protected by copyright in
the U.S. unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not
necessarily keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper
edition.
Most people start at our website which has the main PG search
facility: www.gutenberg.org.
This website includes information about Project Gutenberg™,
including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
